Everyone is familiar with the name IBM (International Business Machines Corporation), but most of them are not familiar with Big Blue. Usually, these two are the same. IBM was formed in the name of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) back in 1911 and later renamed to IBM in 1924. We all know the history of IBM and their inventions. IBM is currently running their operation in over 170 countries. Most of our necessary gadgets are their invention like hard disk drive, automated teller machine, magnetic stripe card, UPC barcode, SQL programming language, dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), etc.

The market of IBM is huge. They manufacture both software and hardware products. Besides, IBM is one of the largest companies in the world having 380K employees. They are the record holder of having the most patents generated by a business company. Their research wing is very active and their latest invention is IBM Watson. According to many sources, IBM has a plan to bring revolutionary changes in paystub generator sector.
Today we are going to discuss five of their upcoming products.

First of all, IBM is developing a holographic chatting system (also known as 3D Telepresence). The programmers said that they are very close to make this happen. The improvement of 3D camera makes it easier to reach to the common people. The researchers of the University of Arizona successfully made a system that is capable of sending holographic images to nearby locations in time. Besides, it is said that we will be able to enter into personal computers through 3D visualization. Thus, the pictures we see now in 2D, we will be able to see them in 3D.

Secondly, the next item on the list is lithium/air battery project (battery 500). This project is still under development and the results are quite satisfactory. IBM believes that these batteries will be able to use the same air which we breathe to produce energy. The concept is that these batteries will use oxygen and react with the metals. Besides, these batteries will be lightweight and very small in size. Surprisingly, these batteries will last ten times more than our regular lithium-ion battery.

Now the third item is personal sensor for every scientist. The development of personal sensors is really important for the welfare of the people. It is essential for the scientists to collect data and preserve them in a storage. IBM predicts that it will be possible within the next five years to collect all these data and send it to various devices like cell phones, cars, computers, etc. using personal sensors. Persevering these data in huge amount can be resourceful in the coming days.

A smart computer system for drivers is number fourth in the list. IBM believes that we cannot solve the traffic problem only by creating new traffic rules or constructing new roads. There are other circumstances which control our transportation system. The smart computer system for drivers will not only show the best way to travel but also helps us with necessary objectives. This technology is based on mathematical models which analyzes probable values to help the drivers.

Last but not least, IBM is researching to control the temperature of a computer. According to a calculation, 50% of the energy is consumed in CPU (Central Processing Unit) to make the engine cooler. Now IBM wants to use this warm air in a significant way. IBM considers that this warm air can be used to heat various parts of a building or to heat water or convert it to current.
So, which idea seems more important to you? Let us know in the comment section.

So, you have a great idea for an app. You think there is an audience out there, and you are hell bent on developing it so that you can get it to market as soon as possible. Yes, it will be a costly project; yes, it will require hours upon hours of wireframing and development.

It’s time to take a step back and just breathe for a minute. Before you launch headlong into a complex and costly app development, make the smart choice to do the research, determine the need, and then develop an MVP that will “test the waters.”

Developing a minimum viable product is not something new, nor should it be considered a “negative.” It’s normal to want to develop the entire product from the “get-go,” but it is not wise. Consider this: Google and Dropbox both created MVP’s before they moved forward. And look where they are today.

If you have never developed an MVP before, it can seem a bit scary. How do you actually do it? Here is your simple guide to MVP development - five steps that will take you from conception to the creation of a product that can be tested and marketed before you develop full functionality.

Define the “WHY?”

If you are developing an app because you think it is cool, then you may be sorely disappointed. Every app, even a game, is built to solve a consumer problem, not your need. So, do the research. Who is your target demographic and what do they want? Creating a customer persona is a major and critical first step. From that persona, you can then identify individual consumers who are willing to participate in user acceptance testing.

Blue-Sky It – the “WHAT” – The Product Requirements Document

This is the step during which you will develop your product requirements list. It the “What” of your app.

Begin by developing a workflow diagram of exactly how your app will work. You need two columns. On the left, identify the input and on the right, the output. From this diagram, you will be able to identify the product features and create that PRD.

Your Product Requirements Document will describe in detail all of the features, relative to the design and user experience. It will become the “bible” for developers. And those developers must be “in” on these discussions, for they will determine the software architecture that will be necessary, the projected time and cost involved in each feature development, etc.

Another critical piece of the product requirements document will be the criteria for release. At what point will the MVP be ready for testing by your audience? This part of your document may indeed have to wait until you have completed Step 3.

Getting Minimal

From the workflow diagram that you have crafted, it is now time to start eliminating features and functions. There is one question that you must continually ask as you move through this process – “What is the least important function of those that remain?”

As you eliminate, of course, you will want to keep a listing of what you removed and in what order. Because, once the MVP is released, tested, and proven to be successful, you will want to add those functions in the reverse order in which you took them out. Your engineers must have this list as well, so that they may what functions will be developed next and in what order.

Once you are down to the minimum viable product, you and your developers(s) can craft that section of the product requirements document that includes the criteria for release:

Are all the mandatory functions in place?

Is the app, in its current MVP state, intuitive and user-friendly?

Does performance provide a great user experience?

Short Development Sprints

Divide the development process into short chunks. As working code is developed and tested in-house, pause to ensure that each chunk is still compatible with the “why” of your product development. Sometimes, the nature of software development means that the scope of a function may change. New ideas may emerge. While these may not be on your plate right now, keep track of them for future scaling.

If a new idea is added, what will you take out? Remember, this is an MVP.

What are You Doing About a Business Plan?

If you are a first-time entrepreneur, and our app is your startup, what have you done about a plan to acquire the funding you may need to fully develop? It is time at this point to look for business plan writers, especially if your strength is in tech and not in marketing/writing. Do not wait until your MVP is finished and tested to do this. That plan must be ready to present to potential investors. At this stage in the process, you have the information you need to craft that plan, and you want it polished and ready.

The Beta Testing

Once the minimum functions are in place and once the criteria for release have been met, it is time for actual user testing. For this step in the process, you and the developer(s) must create a list of tasks you want your testers to perform.

During the testing phase, performance of tasks must be closely monitored. Where are there issues with navigation, speed, etc.? Are there “fails” that must be fixed? What bugs must be worked out?

The other key component of beta testing is tester feedback. Is their experience enjoyable? And, most important, does this product provide a solution to the problem or gap you originally identified? User feedback may also generate ideas that will cause you to re-think the additional functions you originally envisioned – all the better! Remember – it’s all about the user, not you.

Your final development revisions and “fixes” will be based upon actual user testing.

Get Your MVP and that Business Plan Out There

You may not love the idea of marketing and investment-seeking, but it is a reality you must face. There are places to start, obviously. App reviewers abound, and you can offer incentives to reviewers to perform this function for you. You may need some professional help or, at the very least, to conduct some research on your own about marketing options.

If you truly love your car and value the amount you spent, you will always be searching for how to protect your car from daily damage. Yes, there are several elements that are capable of damaging your car daily. Most of the elements are what most car owners ignore not knowing that they are the main culprit for their car damage. Parking your car under the intense heat of summer sun or under the freezing snow falling winter season can make the car to damage daily without your knowledge. Also, parking your car under a tree for shield may seem great at least to protect it from heat from the sun, but it can put the car at risk of being damaged by bird droppings and other elements. This post is dedicated to provide you information on how to protect your vehicle from daily damage.

1, Get a Sunshade While Driving On Hot Sunny Day

While driving on hot sunny road, you need to consider protecting your car screen including the windscreen the door screen and others. Just make use of sunscreen and the glasses will be protected. The reason for this is that intense heat from the sun can result to cracking of your windscreen and other glasses on your vehicle. So, car sunshade is of great important in this respect.

2, Avoid Parking under Shield of Tree to Avoid Bird Dropping

Parking under a tree shield may seem wonderful due to the fact that it can help protect your vehicle from direct heat from the sun. But, the truth is that it can expose your vehicle to risk of being damaged by bird droppings. Bird excretes usually contain chemical that can quickly damage paint on the exterior part of a car. That is why you should not always rely on parking under shield of tree to protect your car from damage.

3, Wash Your Car Regularly

It is important you wash your car regularly to remove the dust, debris and other dirt that can lead to scratching of the paint. Make sure you use smooth material to scrub the body of your car in order to avoid scratching off the paint.

4, Wax on the Car to Protect the Paint

While planning to protect your car, you must also plan to protect the paint properly. The best way to protect the paint is to wax on and wax off the car. The wax can help protect the surface paint from being scratched off or damaged by debris and other little elements here and there.

5, Cover the Car When Parked Either At Home or In the Office

Whether your car is parked at home, in the office or it is on the go, you must look for a way to protect it always. Covering your car while parked is the best way to avoid dust, debris, bird dropping water splashes, acid rain and even heat from the sun from damaging it. You must look for mobile car umbrella that can go with your car anywhere it goes. That is where the need for innovative Lanmodo car umbrella which is built with automatic feature operated with remote control.

For any business that truly values efficiency, it is a no-brainer to have an IVR virtual receptionist. This is why an increasing number of companies are relying on this type of automated phone attendant system for greeting callers, asking and answering questions, and routing individuals to the right department or agent. However, virtual receptionists are not all the same. Just ask any customer who has found themselves stuck on hold for long stretches at a time. The following are some useful tips to help you take your virtual receptionist to the next level to provide your customers with a great first impression and leave them with a positive experience.

First Record A Real Person's Voice And Then Re-Record It

One thing about IVRs that annoys many callers is that they feel as if they are speaking with a robot. One of the most common criticisms made about virtual receptionists is that people want to be able to speak to a real person. Having a live agent for answering the phone isn't always possible. So until a caller is able to speak with a real human, make sure that the experience that they have is as close to being human as possible. Use your own voice to record all of your menu options. Then listen to your menu and be sure to re-record any of the parts that are hard to understand, awkward or seem forced. Don't rush through this part. It is the very first thing that a caller hears when reaching your business, so you want to make sure that you leave a good first impression.

Pay Close Attention To How You Word Your Menu Options

Just like all conversations between an agent and a customer, the responses you set up to use on your virtual receptions should always be professional and courteous. To take an obvious example: if you are selecting a response for when your IVR needs the caller to repeat what he just said, don't have it say "What?" That can sound rude. Instead use something like, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said. Can you repeat that please?" Even when a machine is doing all of the talking, manners are still very important.

Keep Things Simple

Callers want the same thing that you do, which is to be routed to the right individual as soon as possible. When there are too many menu options, your customers might feel like they are wandering through a maze that never ends. Make sure that your menu options are kept simple, and have as few steps as possible from start to finish.

Fix Loops

Many of today's IVR systems offer touchtone versus speech recognition options. Just make sure with speech recognition that your IVR doesn't pick up background noise and think it is the caller's voice. That can result in looping and frustrate the caller.

Pay Close Attention To Benchmarks

According to a recent study, the average hold time across businesses of all different sizes is 56 seconds. When you are trying to gauge how well you are serving your customers and how fast you are at attending to their needs then benchmarks do matter. So determine how well you stack up against benchmarks. It can help you figure out what you need to do to improve your phone system.

Remember To Say Thank You

We previously emphasized manners, and this relates to that, but there is another reason for why it also stands on its own. Customers can get testy when they are on hold, so it is up to you to make sure that they know that their patience and business is appreciated. Just simply saying thank you can go a long way.

Even if you are not too fond of gadgets, there will always be someone you know who is just addicted to anything that is related to technology. It may be a family member, a friend or a colleague. It is evident that if you want to give gifts that will be appreciated, you need to give something that they will truly love.

With the wide selection of gadgets that are available, how can you possibly choose? You first have to analyze your relationship with the person that you are going to give the gift to. If the person is close to you, you may want to spend more. If the person is merely an acquaintance, you do not have to give something extravagant even if you can afford it because it will be uncomfortable for you and the person.

Let us say that you would be giving a gift to a family member, a loved one or a close friend. What are the gifts that you can give?

1. Keyboard Waffle Maker: For the Hilarious Friend

You may have a friend who is so into playing and using his/her gadgets that he/she barely has time to cook. You can give the Keyboard Waffle Maker to remind the person that he/she still needs to eat. At the same time, the unique appearance of this waffle maker will make anyone happy. Since this is cordless, this can be cooked over a grill.

2. GoProHero+: For Someone Who Likes Traveling

You will always come across some people who live to travel. They would like to reach different points of the world because being immersed in different cultures truly change their mindset and their way of thinking. The best thing about GoProHero+ is that it is waterproof and shock proof. It can also take wonderful pictures that can be uploaded online immediately.

3. Light Up Gloves: For the Daredevil

Some people love riding their motorcycles and even their bikes late at night because there are fewer cars traveling at that time but they are also more prone to accidents because they are not seen by other vehicles on the road. Increase their safety by giving them Light Up Gloves. These gloves are very easy to use too. The button located at the gloves just need to be pressed and they will light up until they are pressed again.

4. Syma RC Helicopter: For the Peter Pan

You will always have that friend or that family member who does not want to grow up. Most of the time, they are able to live their normal, adult lives. They go to work and do their responsibilities but during their spare time, they cannot help but release the inner Peter Pan in them. This RC Helicopter will be perfect because this is inexpensive and can be fun to use.

5. Cool Looking Charger: For the Chic Friend

You may think that everyone who loves gadgets must love the outdoors or would love to play various types of sports but actually, there are some who are chic and sophisticated who love gadgets too. The best thing to give is a chic looking charger that they will be proud to put out of their designer bag whenever they need to charge. Search for colors that are not that common or you can find some that can mix the color of their smartphones.

6. 8Bitdo Bluetooth Retro Controller: For the Nostalgic One

You will always have some friends and family members who love playing the latest games and would love to have the latest gadgets but would gladly give a smile when reminded of the things that people used in the past. This bluetooth controller is set up to look like an old Nintendo controller and this can easily sync up with all of the other gadgets that are available at present time.

7. Tile: For Those Who Loses Keys All The Time

Everyone misplaces their keys once in a while but you will know someone who does nothing but lose his/her keys. This is the best gift because this can be attached to simple keys. The gadget will then be connected to the smartphone and it will give out an alarm when prompted so that it can be found.

Out of all the tech gadget ideas that are mentioned above, which one are you planning to purchase soon? Do not hesitate to give you gift ideas too.

Web/app design is becoming a crowded field. With a growing number of professional designers for hire, it is an easy task to hire someone to craft a delightful user experience – it really is an art form. Designing the user interface, however, is an entirely different matter, and the market is far less “flooded” with UI developers.

UI designers have to take the creative plan of a UX design and translate that into actual screens, pages, and all of the visual elements that users will need to have the great experience they want from an app and to ensure that the experience is delightful no matter what device may be “in play.”

There are some “best practices” in crafting great UI – here are seven of them.

Simplicity and Consistency

One of the essential elements of an app that provides a great user experience is simplicity. Users should not have to try to figure out how to navigate around; they should not face any confusion, but, instead, be directed quite simply.

This means as few buttons and other navigational options as possible. If your app is more complex, than present a link for “advanced options.” This allows users to get the basics down, and they may not want to go any further. For others, the advanced options will provide the interfaces they want to move on to.

Consistency removes “chaos” from the app. Color, font, buttons, and icons should all be familiar and comfortable for the user. Changing these things out mid-stream only confuses the user who has to then force his brain to adjust – not cool.

Understanding the Audience

A good UI developer spends time with the client and the UX designer, in order to understand the target demographic of an app. Think, for example, of the differences between the interface needs of a 15-year old, Gen Z demographic and a senior citizen, Baby Boomer one. They can be huge, just in terms of navigational tools in an app, not to mention typography style and size. The more a UI developer knows about the target audience, the better the “fit” of the interface for that audience. as well, the visuals,

Use Visual Hierarchy

Some elements and features of an app are clearly more important than others. They need to stand out. While consistency is important, those things that should command attention from a user should stand out in some way – through color, size, typography, etc. Another example of the effective use of visual hierarchy would be to create lots of white space around a call-to-action button, so that it immediately draws the eyes of a user.

Making Use of Typography

Too many fonts can be confusing and create some chaos in a user’s brain. In fact, OWDT recommends that app developers should ideally use two fonts. Here is the thing about fonts, however:

The nature of the app should dictate selection of fonts. Is it serious, playful, or inspirational?

The nature of the user demographic should also play into this selection. A younger user will tolerate more contemporary and playful fonts while an older, more serious demographic will not find them comfortable.

You can use size and color variation of the same font to create visual hierarchy too. Different background colors will also provide variation to the same font.

Speaking of Color

The UX designer may have a lot to say about color, so be certain that this is discussed at length. There is an entire body of research on the psychological “triggers” of colors, so study it and be certain that the colors are conveying the right “message” to users. There is a reason why the Lego website and apps use only bright primary colors; there is a reason why Rolex uses blacks, silvers and grays. Color consistency also gives users a nice comfort level.

That said, there is certainly something else to be said for the use of contrasting colors in order for certain elements to stand out and draw users’ attention. Everything in moderation, however. If you use the concept of contrasting colors too much, users can become irritated.

Build in Feedback Messages

This is one of the best arguments for testing interfaces all along the way. You have no way of knowing how users may mess up as they navigate and use your features. They will find ways to mess up, however – count on it. To determine where they may get off course, you will need to test, test, test with actual users from the audience demographic. Once you have identified those points at which errors will occur, you can design feedback messages that will let them know what went wrong and how they can fix it.

Sometimes, especially when users are filling in forms or making payments, there will be a necessary pause while information is being processed. Don’t leave your user “in the dark.” Give them a signal that things are processing so they do not duplicate. And give them another signal when information has been processed.

Forms Must Be Simple

Consider the purpose of each form you design. There should be a minimal number of fields for the user to complete – remember, many of them will be on mobile devices. If the conversion is simply to subscribe to a newsletter, for example, you do not need more than name and email address. For payment purposes, of course, you will need credit card/banking information. If the billing and shipping address are the same, however, a simple check-the-box interface will do. The concept is simple – Minimize.

Interface design is a complex task and it can be somewhat intimidating. If you have experience with UX design, however, you are a natural to move into this more “intimidating” function. Just remember the basics – ease of use, simplicity of navigation, understanding the audience, consistency, compatible typography and color, and visual hierarchy. Juggling all of these elements is not easy, but the person who can do it will be in high demand.

Doing business on the go has become the new norm. So does dealing with all sorts of financial transactions through your trusted smart phone or device. From purchasing stocks, making wire transfers and quick personal deposits - mobile finances has exploded in popularity the past few years

The industry keeps growing. Over 1.75 billion users are expected to conduct banking operations through mobile devices by the end of 2019. With this explosive growth what are the benefits for financial enterprises? As more of banking moves into the digital realm, the less money financial institutions have to invest into brick and mortar locations, as well as all of the personnel that goes along with that. When technology can perform all of the functions of a bank teller, and when all of those functions can be safely and easily accomplished by a user app, everyone wins.

But there’s some bad news as well - not all of those users are particularly happy with the kind of user experience they are currently having with their mobile banking. According to the latest J.D. Powers survey only 32% of bank customers say they trust mobile banking and most respondents indicated that they are not “fully satisfied” with the current app proposed by your bank.

The bottom line is this - while financial app development definitely is a promising sector, product owners should specifically focus on building a user-friendly, secure and personalized product rather than deploying just “some app” to stay in trend.

Building That App – Key Elements to Consider

There are several steps in the process of creating a financial app that users will find friendly, safe, and easy to use. If you can accomplish these three things, you will keep customers and your costs down. Consider the following critical pieces.

Know Your Customer

Just who is our mobile consumer? Most would say it is the millennial and younger generations. And they would be mostly correct.

But here’s the thing: Gen X’ers and even 45% of Baby Boomers are using online banking too. And people are interacting with their banks far more frequently than they used to. It’s now so easy to check a balance, transfer funds, and pay bills, if, and this is a BIG if, the app is well done. If not, customers will be lost.

So, what are the biggest objections/frustrations of our potential app users? You have to find this out before you can begin to build or remodel an app.

Here is what consumers are saying about their current banks’ mobile apps:

They are worried about security

The application is not user friendly and they have trouble navigating through it.

It’s too slow

The other critical information you need to get from your customers is what exactly do they want to be able to do on your app. You can use data analytics to track customer behavior or you can ask. But, in general, here is what most consumers do on their financial apps:

94% check their balances or transactions

71% will download their bank’s app on their mobile phones

61% transfer funds

57% sign up for alerts

51% deposit checks

48% pay bills

List the Elements You Will Include

Don’t just make a simple list. Create a scenario for each element. How do you want the customer to go through the process involved?

Once you have all of this, you are ready to look at developers, if you don’t have the in-house expertise. Seasoned financial app developers can take what you want and recommend the best technology stack for your needs.

And speaking of financial app developers, be selective as you search for the best one. They should be willing to show you case studies and put you in touch with clients for reference.

Security – It’s the Most Critical Challenge

You already have security measures in place if you offer online banking through your website. Translating those to a mobile app means the following:

Make sure your developer understands your security policies

Application servers must be carefully configured, so that phishing is avoided

Use the most current digital signature technology – you want everything secure and yet easy for the user

Utilize encryption for all user stored data.

Have a password strength checker – never allow your customers to use simply and easily-hacked passwords.

Be firm with your customers on how they are to behave when using your app. They must password-protect their phones; they should never store their passwords with you; they must logout when finished; they must install app updates. They have to do their part to protect their information too.

Keep it Simple

You know the features your customers want. Limit activities to those features only. If the majority of your customers pay bills on the app, then focus the application around that feature. Don’t waste time building features, such as applying for loans, that are hardly used by your clients.

As the app matures continue adding features in a methodical and customer centric way.

Sleek Design and UX

Here are the things to think about:

Only a couple of steps to get to functions - reduce the number of clicks.

Users love notifications - make sure you offer that to them.

Analyze & track the features most frequently used, and focus the user interface on those functions.Test, Test, Test

While security is important, make sure you have a fully refined QA process in place to reduce any problems with the software.

And don’t forget user testing – you’ll get great feedback.

Plan for Diverse Devices

Make sure you app works well across all devices and screen sizes. There are a number of services that offer online emulators for you to test your applications - make use of that.

Consider adding a mobile analytics piece in your application to track detailed information about usage, and better visibility into any problems your customers might be facing.

Cost – It’s Not Your Primary Concern

When looking for a developer for your application, cost should not be your only concern. Financial applications are complicated and require experienced developers who understand the intricacies of the industry, security and functionality. Don’t just go after the lowest priced developer.

Building a financial app will be key to retaining your customers. If even Baby Boomers are using them, the proverbial “handwriting is on the wall.” Take these eight “criticals” and find the right developer now.

"Abstract

IBM® Tivoli® Access Manager for Enterprise Single Sign-On enables users to access all their applications, including web, desktop and heritage, and network resources, with the use of a single strong password. The solution helps simplify password management, protects information with strong authentication, and secures kiosks and shared workstations.

Tivoli Access Manager for Enterprise Single Sign-On helps strengthen security and meet regulations through stronger passwords and an open authentication device interface with a wide choice of strong authentication factors. It also facilitates compliance with privacy and security regulations by leveraging centralized auditing and reporting capabilities.

In this IBM Redpaper™, we take a closer look at how to integrate web-based applications into Tivoli Access Manager for Enterprise Single Sign-On by using its AccessProfile technology.

This IBM Redpaper is a good resource for security administrators who are responsible for configuring and integrating Tivoli Access Manager for Enterprise Single Sign-On into their organization's IT infrastructure."

Here are a few good points you need to take in serious when you try to approach space communities like IBM developers platform.

Communication is an essential skill required invariably to acquire success in any field of like. Writing is again one the most effective communicating modes which plays commanding role in business. Effective, thoughtful and clear writing for managers, entrepreneurs or business professionals can enhance potential scopes of success, better grip over the market and good network.

You can actually never undermine the fact that clear writing reflects clarity of thinking. However, not everyone is born with the power packed communicating skill of impressive and nailing writing skills. At the same time as Bryan Garner, the author of The HBR Guide to Better Business Writing believes everyone has the scope and capacity for improvement. Thus, you can essentially improve your business-oriented writing skills with an effective implication of few strategic movements and tips.

Determine Purpose

Determining your purpose essentially means collecting your thoughts, understanding the purpose of the business writing. While you write a business mail it can be dedicated to several purposes. Like for example if your purpose is to call your employees for annual talent hunt, then it is not desirous that you bore them describing the activities, its utility in team building efforts etc. You need to be relaxed yet professional in tone. Therefore, understand what to you want to convey to your audience through the writing. It is kind of directional thinking to obtain clarity of thoughts. Therefore, you can frame your writing accordingly once you determine your purpose that is:

To invite

To persuade

To inform

To notify

To reject a proposition

To argue for a proposition

To Inquire

To seek for approval, etc.

Cut it Short and be Direct

No one has time for reading lengthy paragraphs and phrases when you are dealing in serious business. You need to pinpoint your purpose of writing in the first paragraph itself instead of dragging to the mid of the writing. Postponing the revealing of the purpose to the middle of writing loses the attention of the reader. While injecting the purpose right in the top of the writing you actually purposefully sharpen your argument as well.

Moreover, while framing business writing it is highly recommended to cut off the unnecessary ornamentations and fat in writing. Like, opt for “viewpoint” rather than “point of view”, skip the use of is, are, was, were and use active verbs instead like for instance “indicates” rather than “is indicative of”. You can also essentially avoid the use of ion words with action verbs.

Do not Jargon your write up

Intelligence reflects in simple words as well only if you can clarify your thoughts, nail in your perspective. There is no need of using too much of buzzwords, acronyms and grandiose words. Complicated writing, as well as too much use of acronyms, implicates laziness of mind. Thus it is better to express in simple, easy to understand and direct language and communicative style rather than going other ways. Business writing experts essentially believe that clarity and active conciseness never go out of style in any field of action.

The challenges of managing virtualized environments are mounting. The benefits of virtualization—from cost and labor savings to increased efficiency—are being threatened by its staggering growth and the resultant complexity. A critical piece to solving these challenges, as many organizations have already discovered, is image management. Read more: http://ibm.co/SpHTlV

We are Keeping a Watchful eye on Home Security Tech Trends!

Cloud storage, everything seems to be moving to the holy grail of cloud storage. And not far behind, home security is now jumping on that too. From monitoring your home for a fixed cost to now backing up data stored by security cameras, they have found new ways to make users feel safe and bring home some extra money themselves as home security providers.

What to Look for in a Modern Security System

Before going out and purchasing any random home security system, one should consult experts opinions and research which is best. Make sure that it has automation features available. This can include Z-wave automation, security apps for turning on and off the system and more. Regardless, too many home owners are taken advantage of every year by not knowing what security system to choose. Using a buyer’s guide like the one Alarm Reviews provides can save users lots of money and time from choosing the wrong one.

Next, make sure it fits your budget and get what is needed to secure the full home. Don’t miss out on features that you really want to save a couple of dollars. If that is the case, hold off on home security for a few more months until you can afford the security system that is wanted. It is better to have too much security equipment than not enough in which case a burglar may never be caught. If you want to go full out and have the best self-defense system possible, keep reading as we will now discuss what to look for in security cameras.

POE, Z-Wave and other Surviellance Cameras

If you thought choosing a security system was complicated, the specifications and technology of security camera systems is much more. Now you have to choose between wiring options, viewing from mobile device (and how much that will charge users for data), hard drive storage versus cloud storage and more. Here is a few tips after analyzing the information from SecurityCameraSystemPro’s.

Go with a large hard drive with backup cloud storage options. Most Swann, GE and Honeywell security cameras offer this. It may cost an additional $5 to $10 a month.

Go with wired over wireless. Wireless security cameras can sound appealing at first but it turns out to be quite the headache. Avoid the trouble of changing in and out batteries and get the correct set of cameras from the beginning.

Install at correct points of interest. If your camera doesn’t catch the bad guys stealing, loitering or other crimes then it is doing no one any good. Video footage can be used to pursue crooks so make sure the cameras are placed outside in front and cover a wide range. To achieve this it may take 2 to 4 separate security cameras.

In Closing

No matter what you do or choose to increase your home security, make sure to take actions and start today. Like car accidents and other disasters, it is best to have ‘insurance’. Consider these two methods of home defense as insurance against the worst case scenario of someone breaking and entering your premises.

Many of those kids are at least 4 years older now, are graduating high school or may be entering college. But their passions for gaming have not decreased. In fact, they are participating in lots of online competition and dream of either professional gaming or, even more ambitious, getting into game development.

Given the popularity of gaming, there will always be work in the gaming industry. For those who specifically want to move into development, there will be some skill training and some work ahead. Here are 8 tips for these passionate gaming development hopefuls.

Choose Your Focus

Programming: If this is your goal, you have programming languages to learn and learn well – C++, JavaScript, HTML, and perhaps more. When developing games, you will either code outright or use some of the tools that will make it easier. Either way, you need to have solid understanding of the languages.

Designing: You do not need to learn programming languages. But you do need to understand the process by which games are developed. This will allow you to design the “art” side of games, knowing what a developer will need to do. And, if you are a solopreneur in the industry, then you will need to have that design in as much detail as possible before you speak with a developer.

Identify Your Limitations and Account for Them

If design is your focus, and you are great at creating scenes and music, you may not be so good at character development. If you are working for a company, the expertise will be there, and you will work as a team. If you are a freelancer, however, you will need to partner up with someone else.

If you are in the programming side, and you are struggling with some of the coding, you need to know where to get that help. Understanding your limitations and getting that help will demonstrate to an employer that you want to get things right the first time out, rather than having to debug after testers have pointed out the “fails.”

Check Your Passion

Good game development requires passionate people who do not see what they do as real work. For them, it is fun. There are crazy long hours, lots of collaboration with others, disagreements, long discussions over Chinese takeout, creative problem-solving, and flexibility/compromises. Make certain that these are all things you will love, or you will develop resentment – never a good thing.

Check Out Options Other Than Development or Design

You may love gaming, and you may want to be a part of the industry. But you are not really into the art or science of it all. There are other opportunities within the industry. These include such positions as testing, marketing, or even doing voice-overs for characters or contributing the music.

Look for Internships

If you want to work for a company/studio, pursue internships. These are amazing learning experiences, even if you do not end up working for that specific company. Other gaming firms or groups will be far more interested in talking to you if you have an internship under your belt. Some internships are even remote, should you not live in close proximity, and many are actually paid.

Consider Freelancing

If you are on the independent side, you may not like the idea of joining a studio as a regular employee. Studios need lots of expertise and, especially if they are small or in the startup phase, they cannot afford full-time employees. Once you have your skill set, check out job boards and niche publications – there will be many opportunities within your skill area.

If and when you take a gig, be certain that you craft a contract, if the firm/studio does not provide one. Any contract should sell out exactly what you are expected to do, how much you will be paid, and a guarantee that your contribution(s) may be used in your professional portfolio.

Be Careful About Pay Offers

There are lots of “poor” studios out there – people who are passionate about gaming and who have big dreams but no money. They are looking for “desperate” people who have their same passion who they can pay almost nothing. Sometimes they will offer you a small equity position or stock in the company or claim that your work will be a great portfolio addition. These things can be tempting, especially if you are hungry for work, but don’t sell yourself short and don’t work for nothing.

Getting Discouraged – It Comes with the Territory

Expect long dry spells. Of course, if they don’t come, great. But when they do, it is probably not because you lack skills. Competition can be tough, and there just may not be a “fit” between a studio’s need and your skillset.

When you hit dry spells or no nibbles from your job applications, take that time to design or develop on your own, to build up your portfolio, or take additional coursework to add to your skillset.

Find ways to network – attend workshops, conferences, and other meetings. Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date, and join groups on that platform. Participate in online forums and discussions; start a blog; develop some podcasts. There are just many things you can do to keep your name out there and to keep your passion intact.

And, if you have to eat, take an unrelated job. Eventually, you will find a position or “gig,” and you will “get your groove” back.

The gaming industry is exciting and fun. It is also evolving rapidly, as technology continues to improve gaming experiences for players. Keep abreast of these advances – you don’t want to become irrelevant.

It’s been almost a year since that fateful vote on Brexit. There were two quite diametrically opposed assumptions of the consequences. Those who supported the move saw great economic growth for the UK, now that it was unshackled from the “chains” of the EU. Those who opposed it predicted an economic crash.

None of these has actually occurred. In fact, Brits have awakened every day since June 23, 2016 to “business as usual.” The Pound did take a hit, of course, and that is, as with any economy, a two-edged sword. Consumers pay more for imported goods, and tech startups will pay more for such things as Amazon S3. But outside investors find it much cheaper to do business in London.

The Bureaucracy Moves Slowly

The biggest reason for the continued “business as usual” is, of course, the fact that two years of negotiations with the EU on the details of Brexit have just begun. And the “biggies,” such as trade, exchange rates, immigration visas, etc. have yet to be hammered out.

What This Means for the Startup Climate in London

Thus far, Brexit has had little impact on the startup scene. In fact, during the first quarter of 2017, UK startups attracted $1.4 billion in VC. While it is a bit less than the same quarter of 2016, it is more than quarters 2-4 of last year. The primary reason, of course, is that with the devaluation of the British currency, foreign investors get more “bang for their bucks.”

The number of new startups, as demonstrated by the still-hot demand for office space in Shoreditch, indicates that founders are betting that the Brexit negotiations will leave the UK in a good position in the long run.

While there is a shortage of techies in the UK, and while this shortage has always been easily filled by the immigration policies of the EU, founders believe that #10 Downing Street is practical and realistic and understands the need for IT skills, no matter where those skills might come from. To slam the door too hard on immigration would be a mistake, forcing startups and even more established tech firms to pull up stakes.

Already, there is some talk that Dublin could become a new tech center, if UK immigration policies make it too expensive or prohibitive to attract and secure continued tech expertise needs.

What to Watch For

One thing is for certain – no one knows what Brexit will ultimately mean for startups or investors. A recent survey, conducted by TechCrunch, polled both founders and investors of some of the largest startups and investors in Europe.

Here’s what founders said: Over the next two years, they are very high on Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Stockholm, Berlin, Helsinki, Paris, and even New York City (where the local government is revamping many of its commercial incentives), as opposed to London. Founders express uncertainty until the Brexit negotiations are complete, and “things” settle down. It appears that London will be losing its status as the startup capital of Europe, at least in the short-term. Founder cite as their concerns exactly those that have already been mentioned – staffing with uncertain visa/travel restrictions, and the ability to raise money in such a climate.

On the bright side, founders also cited the weaker GBP with its consequent ability to raise funds, along with the hope for governmental tax incentives and somewhat cheaper real estate.

Here’s what investors said: They see great opportunity in the same cities as the surveyed founders, but over the next two years, they will be closely watching the negotiations of Brexit. Right now, they are happy to have the devalued Pound and do continue to invest in UK startups, but remain cautious.

One of the challenges, investors believe, will be in FinTech, especially because of “passporting issues” for European banking licenses. Overall, however, investors believe that, once the uncertainty has dissipated, London will again be a highly attractive investment opportunity. They have more faith in the government’s pragmatism than founders do.

Some Other Positive Signs

In February, Amazon announced that it will hire an additional 5,000 in the UK during 2017. While most of this employment will be in fulfillment centers, 10% will be in research and development centers. – centers that are developing technology for such things as Alexa, Prime Video, and drones.

Late last year, Google announced that it would add 3,000 to its London office over the next several years. And Facebook is increasing its staffing by 50%. Adding to this positive news, Apple purchased a 500,000-sq. foot space for expansion.

Facing the Future

Whatever the Pound does, it seems the larger issue for the UK is the shortage of native STEM skills. The tech sector is now 16% of the UK economy, and if skilled expertise is not to be found “in-country,” immigration restrictions will be a serious blow.

According to the Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), an organization that represents digital and tech startups, the UK will need an extra two million techies by 2020. They are not producing these people, and they will certainly not be coming from outer space. The recommendation is that the UK offer a special visa for those with this expertise, allowing the tech startup sector to continue to flourish in the UK.

“Brexit means Brexit” is a common saying among the supporters of this referendum. But for startups and investors, the meaning if still unclear. Again, the government of the UK, conservative or liberal, has always been highly pragmatic, and it is unlikely that it will let 16% of its current economy falter.

Along with making your brand stand out in a congested and competitive space, digital PR also involves monitoring what online users have to say about you as well as knowing how to prevent a reputation crisis from occurring.

But if you manage to establish a strong brand identity, you can stay one step ahead of rivals, keep on track with effective marketing efforts, and turn negative press or comments into an opportunity to improve.

Monitor your brand

First of all, you should set up Google Alerts for keywords relating to your brand. This way, you will be notified each time the business is mentioned, helping you keep on top of both positive and negative feedback in a timely, efficient manner. To this end, you may also want to use Brand Mentions, Buzzsumo, and Hooks.

Monitor your competitors

Don’t be naive enough to think that every brand with a presence online only looks at its own standing and stature. Whenever one business slips up, every other organisation in that industry will be quick to avoid the same mistake. One of the best competitor monitoring and reporting tools is SE Ranking, which enables you to see what rivals are up to at a glance. You can also view important trends, sudden ranking drops, and increases in PPC budget.

Handle criticism correctly

The brands with the best reputations online don’t shy away from criticism and condemnation; they deal with it up front in a helpful, authentic, and respectful way. You could even try to counteract negativity with humour, but be careful not to make fun of users with serious or significant complaints. Also, don’t just block unhappy customers or delete their comments, as this can backfire big time.

Implement brand consistency

Establishing a strong brand identity is hugely dependent on consistency across all online activity, especially with visual elements. A business is much more likely to stick in the memory of users if the company colours and branding appears the same on its website, social media channels, email newsletters, and advertising campaigns.

Increase site stability and security

The increasing impatience of online audiences means you cannot afford to have a website that suffers from slow speeds or prolonged periods of downtime. It is well worth the effort and expense to upgrade your site’s servers for better stability and greater security. For several customers, your brand’s online reputation will often start and end with the company website.

This article has been provided by SEO & Webdesigns, the leading digital marketing agency.

There can be a lot of reasons to surprise your girlfriend with a beautiful gift. Maybe it’s her birthday, Christmas or Valentine’s Day. However, when it comes to choosing cute gifts for girlfriend, the stakes are high, as a poorly chosen gift can leave a damaging effect, or even worse, ruin the relationship.

Choosing a gift can be quite tricky, as there are several factors for you to consider before buying the gift, such as how long you have been dating, what’s the occasion, and how much is your budget. So without further ado, we are sharing with you a simple yet great tip that will make her feel like you really care about her, and bring a smile to her face.

A beautiful necklace can be the perfect gift for your girl, as not only there’s a huge variety to choose from, it’s something which she can wear every day. Besides, a necklace has always been an important component in woman’s attire. You don’t need to spend a fortune to buy a designer necklace for girlfriend. For just a couple of hundred bucks or less, you can buy a necklace that matches with the taste, style or personality of your girlfriend. There are companies like “Nano Jewelry” that offer wide spectrum of necklaces in different designs and styles at reasonable rates. What makes them unique is that their designs are inspired by history, spirituality and love.

In today’s era most of us can’t imagine a life without smartphones and computers. However, when it comes to technology, computers are prone to viruses, Wi-Fi networks can fail to connect, frequent cyber threats, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, most of the small business owners ignore the importance of managing technology, and undervalue the role of IT support company. One can understand how frustrating it can be when technology is not working, and you are unable to fix the problem.

The good news is that CMIT Solutions of Southern Westchester are available to help small businesses with all their technical issues and outrages. CMIT Solutions of Southern Westcheser is a New-York based IT Support Company specializing in IT Services for small-to-mid sized businesses in New York. They provide comprehensive IT service for businesses who are too small to have internal IT department and for large companies with multiple locations.

Specifically, some of the key benefits of hiring CMIT Solutions is that they, eliminate annoying spam, pop-ups, and spyware from taking over your computer and your network, Safeguard your data, offer 24/7/365 monitoring and ongoing maintenance, in-house, New York IT support department without all of the costs, instant technical IT support, eliminate the risk of sudden and unexpected IT repairs and data recovery costs and replace it with a low, predictable monthly rate, cheap service with complete peace of mind, and dramatically reduce your risk of experiencing a very expensive, highly disruptive network outage, downtime or disaster.

In today’s age of technology, there has been a substantial growth in the number of educational activities for kids. Kids growing nowadays usually see their older siblings and parents on the laptop. Hence, their interest is likely to peak about also making use of the device. They will want to get on there and also play games as grown-ups do. However, it’s best that you pick educational activities so that the time spent on entertainment will likewise facilitate learning without the children knowing it.

As parents, you can find educational activities and games on the Internet for children of all ages. Moreover, you can also find several educational related games. If you are looking for arithmetic, there are plenty of websites that offer fun things for kids to do that deal with concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. Studying is also enjoyed by participating in fun activities. Some sites read stories to kids while they follow along with the words on the screen.

There’s no doubt that technological advancement has brought important changes to humanity. It has also influenced the way kids experience entertainment and learning. Mobile gadgets such as tablets, laptops, computers, and smartphones are the source of entertainment for several kids. Tablets, along with other gadgets can have both negative and positive effects on the overall mental development of kids, but as parents, you can turn these mobile tablets into an educational tool for your kids. Using the best tablet for kids, your child can have a more entertaining and safe learning experience.

Tablets like these come with several essential features that set them apart from regular tablets. For one, the overall design of the tablet is nice-looking, child-friendly and durable, and offers several brain-boosting benefits. Though, for kids to get the maximum benefits, it is necessary to choose one with the right features.

Apart from allowing kids to use educational gadgets, parents must also allow their kids to indulge in outdoor activities and explore the real world. The open-air environment provides experiences that can facilitate the improvement and enhance the physical, social, emotional, and intellectual skills of kids. One great way for your kid to explore the outdoors is with the use of an electric dirt bike that specially designed for kids.

Electric dirt bikes allow kids play outside of their homes, providing them with a perfect opportunity to explore many things around them. An early daybreak biking activity to your much-loved biking trail or even around the neighborhood will allow kids to observe individuals, animals, plants and so many other things that will spark their interest. However, not any electric bike will do. You will have to choose the best electric dirt bike of kids that’s safe, fun and exciting.

In a nutshell, educational activities are great. They develop the kids’ interest and enhance learning. At the end of every session, they learn something new that helps them become smarter, more patient, and allow them to have a better understanding of the world.

In recent years there has been much talk about cloud computing, the cloud, the change this entails in our way of developing and managing our applications ... But what is cloud computing really?

Large companies began using this term to refer to those services hosted on the network. In fact that is the first thing most of us come to mind about "Cloud Computing". Therefore, we can say that the word cloud would be equivalent to what we know as the Internet. However, the concept has much more scope and is something that we intend to relate in this article.

Types of cloud

There are currently 3 types of clouds:

Public clouds: These are those that are administered by the service provider. The great advantage of them is that they do not require an initial investment to start using them and do not entail a maintenance expense for the consuming customer. These clouds are shared with other customers within the provider's data centers.

Private clouds: Private clouds, unlike public clouds, are managed by the client to gain greater control. Due to this, it implies an initial investment in the infrastructure since it will be hosted on-premise, ie at the client's premises. As a main advantage, the customer enjoys a cloud of his property where he is the only one who resides in it, although the maintenance costs are borne by the owner.

Hybrid clouds: Finally we have this intermediate option between the two previous clouds. While they say that this type will be the most widespread in the future, it is not as defined as the rest. The main idea is that the customer will be able to keep control of those main applications and delegate the administration in which they consider secondary.

Types of services

Once you have covered the types of clouds that exist, what can we do with them?

Depending on the need we need to cover, there are different types of services within cloud computing:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This type of service offers us the necessary infrastructure to be able to upload our environment and also to run proprietary software on it. The two fundamental pillars are computing and storage as a service. Sometimes they refer to IaaS as HaaS (Hardware as a Service). As examples of this type of services we can mention GoGrid and Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud).

Platform as a Service (PaaS): When we talk about the platform within the cloud, the service we offer is the environment where we can directly deploy our applications. The clearest examples in this section are the Windows Azure platform by Microsoft and Google App Engine .

Software as a Service (SaaS): The last service, and one of the best known by the market, are those transformed into final applications provided by the provider, ready to be used by customers. In this type of service we are assured the maintenance, the support and the availability of the software. Within this set, we can find Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard(BPOS) which is a set of well-known applications in its online version like SharePoint Online , Exchange Online , Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Online . Another group of applications within this area would be Salesforce, Known mainly for its CRM in the cloud, and Basecamp where its flagship product is its collaboration tool for projects.

Advantage

As an advantage of this administration and development model, we can highlight the cost savings as the most important, in addition to the high scalability, reliability, as well as the abstraction of hardware maintenance, something up to now innovative in large companies with its own department ITEM.

One of the concepts that best define the cloud environment is the term "Pay as you go", which means that we only pay for usage and not a monthly fixed fee, such as traditional hosting services.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning the agility with which we have these services, achieving in a matter of minutes a putting into production that could take months, when dealing with the traditional on-premise process.

Disadvantages

While it is true that the advantages of cloud computing are worth considering, there are some points that can be crucial when it comes to hitting the cloud:

First, there is the perception of insecurity in moving our information out of our physical reach, which can manifest a sense of vulnerability. To solve this "fear" among potential customers, large cloud companies have efficient, high-security systems to keep data safe from potential attacks.

Another drawback is dependence on an Internet provider. Due to the location of the services, we are tied to this need, so it is advisable to have a second connection in case of failure of the main.

Although less and less, there is still some immaturity in some of the services offered by lack of functionality, in relation to similar products designed to meet these needs in servers within the client.

In summary

In this section, we have been able to know the concept of cloud computing as the technological proposal of large companies to refer to the different services hosted on the Internet, as well as the different types of clouds available in the market. In addition we have listed the types of services available to date and how some companies already offer them to the public.

Cloud Computing Made SimpleThis half-day briefing consists of an overview and introduction to cloud computing, essentially cloud computing 101, the drivers and the various components of cloud, and concludes with “how to get started” - that is, how clients can capture the silver lining in their organisations.

Learning the tricks of any trade will take time and dedication. However, IBM offers developers a way to connect, learn, and grow with six different types of developer events including hackathons, workshops, meet-ups, web casts, conferences, and premium events.

Hackathons

Hackathons are unique to the developer community. Although the name sounds bit sinister, hackathons are actually a legitimate way to grow as a developer. During these events, developers have the chance to build innovative apps, typically based on a theme or challenge presented at the hackathon.
The events are competitive, and participants are often encouraged to use IBM Blue-mix for their applications so that they can build, scale, and extend their applications quickly.
A hackathon is currently scheduled for Oct. 20-22, 2017 at Galvanize, located at 315 Hudson St., New York, N.Y. During this hackathon, developers can learn how to take blockchain ideas from concept to creation in just a week. The event will be hosted by IBM.

Workshops
Possibly the most versatile of training types, workshops come in many formats and styles, ranging from smaller coding sessions or panels to more hands-on activities. The events are held around the world both in person and virtually and cover themes such as Big Data and Analytic, Mobile, Watson and Internet of Things.
The events give developers the opportunity to learn more about developing apps quickly and E efficiently with Blue-mix, IBM's Cloud-based platform for building and managing apps of all kinds.

Meet-ups
Don't have time for a workshop? Meet-ups are probably the best option. A more condensed version of a workshop, participants meet in an informal environment to take turn their ideas into real projects while networking with fellow developers.

Webcasts
Virtually learn all there is to know about developing by attending webcasts. During these webcasts, developer professionals discuss the ins and outs of several different aspects of developing, including security, the Cloud, data and analytics, and more.

Conferences
Conferences are great ways to immerse fully into the world of developing. Usually spanning multiple days, conferences are events containing keynote speakers, demos, workshops, and specialty tracks designed for all levels of developers.

Premium Events
The developer Works Premium events are accessed through an annual membership. The membership gives developers access to the tools and resources they need to grow their skills and complete a project they can really be proud of.

Developers with the developer Works Premium membership can receive up to 50 percent off developer event registration fees. Discounts are limited and are first-come, first-serve.

In European Law, the right to privacy is a really developed aspect of the Law. The European Union has a very strong directive on data protection, which was adopted in 1995. This directive is based on the regulation of how the personal data of individuals and free movement of such data are processed within the European Union.

In January 2012, the European Commission made a comprehensive proposal to reform the data protection rules in the EU. This reformation of the policy was aimed to be a priority to be completed in 2015. The special goal of the reformed set of rules was to bring simplicity to the regulatory environment for doing business, and give back control to the citizens over their personal data. This reform of data procession is what now mainly enables the Digital Single Market, which has been prioritized by the commission. This reform enables businesses and European citizens to optimally gain from the digital economy.

In the course of carrying out certain social activities, like opening a social media account or booking a flight online, one hands over important personal data such as their address, name, and credit card information. Every individual has rights regarding all this personal data. These rights are concerned with the protection of personal data, as officially regulated under the EU Law.

The EU Law states that the gathering of personal data can only be made possible for legitimate purposes under very strict situations. This further means that every person or institution that gathers another’s personal data must ensure that it is well protected from any misuse. There are certain rights which every data owner has, which are guaranteed by European Union Law and must be adequately respected.

On a daily basis, there is a transfer of a great deal of personal data within the EU borders, by individuals, businesses and public authorities. If there were controversial rules in different countries regarding data protection, international exchanges would be disrupted. Many people wouldn’t be willing to allow their personal data be transferred abroad if there was uncertainty about the protection level in other countries. For this reason, a common EU set of rules has been created. In this way, everyone’s personal data enjoys a high rate of protection in all countries within the European Union. EU laws is open for anyone to complain or seek redress if his/her data is mishandled anywhere in the EU member states.

There is also the Data Protection Directive of the EU which foresees certain rules regarding the movement of personal data outside EU countries, otherwise known as third countries. This has put in place in order to ensure that personal data is optimally protected when transferred outside of the EU. The EU directive for third country transfer of data states that data can only be transferred to a third country that provides a sufficient protection level. An exemption to this rule is allowed in cases such as situations involving the controller himself who has assured that the receiving party will observe the data protection laws. There is also ‘’Article 29 Working Party’’ that offers advice about the protection level within the European and third countries.

In Germany, data protection is majorly controlled by the Federal Data Protection Act, which executes directive 95/46/EC on data protection.

Ecommerce. Even brick and mortar retailers also now sport a website for online shoppers. In fact, shoppers can go to an online big box retailer, purchase an item, and then pick it up at their local store. Then, of course, are the small retailers who only have an online shop. Add to that all of the newer concepts in online ecommerce, such as subscription-based product purchases (coffee-of-the-month; razor blades, diapers, etc.), and you have perhaps the most major disruption of any industry.

Successful Ecommerce Requires an Amazing Website

Given the fact that today’s consumer has the attention span of a goldfish, an ecommerce retailer has only a few seconds to engage a visitor, provide an exceptional user experience, and keep that consumer entertained, inspired, and motivated to keep looking at products/services on display.

All of this means that an ecommerce website must be exquisitely designed and developed. It must load fast; navigation must be speedy and easy; the cart and checkout process must be smooth and seamless.

How does this get accomplished?

The Early Days Vs. Now

In the beginning were a few programming languages and coders. Every part of a website had to be coded, line by line – an arduous task and one which was assumed by “gurus” of coding that accomplished mysterious miracles that no one else could understand.

But technology has a way of simplifying things. And that is just what has happened with ecommerce technology stack architecture. The components of a technology stack (called microservices) are generally created by different developers who work independently. So, in building an entire platform, there are many choices for microservices. And for those looking for the easiest solution, there are entire platforms, composed of microservices which are already configured, such as Shopify, Etsy, PayPal, or Instacart.

In essence, you will have an operating system, a web service, a database and a programming language, each with components that must be chosen based upon your current and future business goals. Choosing microservices, each one focused on a small task, will all have to support what it is you envision. But because all of those components are standalone microservices that can be easily incorporated into a platform technology stack, it is now a matter of choosing the right stack components, customizing them if and when it becomes necessary. And that is what developers do today.

The job of the ecommerce retailer is to decide what the website must have on the front-end architecture, for seamless user experience, to ensure that products are available to his customers, either through his own inventory or that of drop-shipping suppliers. Oberlo can perfectly help you with the latter. You will also need to ensure that the technology is there for product displays and descriptions, for shopping convenience, and for a perfect checkout process.

Important Considerations for the Technology Stack

Traditionally, ecommerce platforms have been built on Java/.Net/PHP and so forth. They use long-standing application servers, supported by Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). The issues crop up when a retailer needs to scale, either through expansion of product lines and/or an increase in customer base. At that point, the goal is not to sacrifice speed or responsiveness.

Typically, when scaling is necessary, there will be the requirements for increasing number of servers, load balancing, hardware, and such. And a decision must be made whether to scale horizontally (add more machines) or vertically (add more power to existing machines). Horizontal is often preferred because it utilizes less system resources and can handle larger amounts of traffic.

As an ecommerce business considers microservices architecture, they must think about the following:

They want ease of scalability and resilience

They want to modify, expand, replace, and scale without downtime or negatively impacting the system, even if only for a short time.

The following services will be mandatory

Product/Product Catalogue Search

User Registration/Login

Shopping Cart/Shopping Cart Recovery

Product Detail Page(s)

Checkout

Here is an example of the microservices that could be chosen for an ecommerce enterprise that is horizontally scalable, non-blocking, and responsive.

MONGODB: This allows a document-oriented data store – products can be stored as documents and in categories – example: OpenSky.com

NODEJS: A server-side JavaScript Engine that will support a huge number of connections at the same time. Groupon uses NODEJS.

Pre-Packaged Stacks

To make ecommerce site building even easier, a number of “big players” have published their technology stacks on StackShare, a site that focuses on all things “stack-related.” There are detailed listings of the stacks used by such companies as Best Buy, Airbnb, Dropbox, Medium, Vine, Shopify, and many more. StackShare also provides the latest news on tools and trends on stack architecture.

The featured stacks include microservices in application and data, utilities, DevOps, and business tools and provide lots of options for ecommerce startups and existing retailers to consider.

Is There an Ideal ECommerce Technology Stack?

The short answer is “no.” Anyone who studies the stacks on Stack Share can clearly see that even the “big boys” use a variety of microservices that are not in common.

An ecommerce retailer is just that – a retailer. S/he is not an expert on technology stacks. And so, the wise move is to do the following:

Determine what it is that the site should be and do

Look at the goals for scaling in the future

Present the requirements and specifications to professional back-end and front-end developers

Rely on those developers who have the reputation and the experience to put together the ideal technology stack for those individual business needs.

Custom drink coasters have been in use since the late 1800’s, and they have been used to promote customized messages for over a century. Custom coasters are a staple of events big and small, and one of the most cost-effective ways to deliver your message to friends, family, and potential customers without overt intent. To help you decide which package to go with, we’ve put together excellent uses including custom beer coasters.

Wedding Swag—Weddings are likely the most decorative events in existence. There will be champagne glasses and cups of punch at every table, providing plenty of opportunities to share a customized message on the coasters underneath. This is an opportunity to add a festive touch to the proceedings with classy messages on custom coasters that match the event’s decor. You may go with a simple message containing the bride and groom's name with the date, or perhaps a selection of different love poems that represent their union.

Network Logins—We’ve all been to a friend or family member’s house and had to inquire about their Wi-Fi password. Make it easy for your guests to save their data by providing network name and password on custom coasters. This is especially convenient when you have guests that are staying for a while, since they’ll need this information to connect their tablets and laptops to the Internet.

Advertisements—Custom coasters are a boon for small business that want to get their name out there. You can hand them out at events as free gifts and allow the recipients to advertise for you each time they entertain. You can also place them on the tables of your own events. Further, consider handing them out to the local eateries and bars for free—perhaps with a deal that you’ll do the same for them—and receive low-cost advertising whenever someone uses a coaster.

Event Promotions—Between weddings, trade events, and promotional parties, you can add custom coasters to any gift bag. They double as useful gifts the attendees will appreciate and sources of continual advertisement as they are used. Consider ordering coasters in bulk to have enough for all the upcoming gatherings.

And if you want a custom designed coaster, go to a design shop like Insite Advice.

When it comes to sexual expression, modern society is quite open to it, and several individuals have multiple sexual partners. Unfortunately, these people are more prone to sexual diseases, as STDs are caused by infections that are passed from one individual to another during a sexual contact. Such infections are hard to detect at early stages, as they do not show any symptoms. In fact, the estimated total number of people living in the US with STD is over sixty-five million, and each year, there are approximately fifteen million new STD cases.

Hence, it has become quite crucial for the people, especially the youth to practice safer sex and prevent the risk of getting infected by STD.

Freedom Network has recently launched a comprehensive guide to sexually transmitted diseases that includes the latest important information about STD and its symptoms with pictures and facts, and how it can be treated. They are a team of volunteer web-publishing professionals and medical experts who have worked side by side to produce this STD Guide Online Version for you. Through this unique collaboration, they give you access to knowledge and control over your health. The guide is available at: https://www.std-gov.org/

It’s intimidating. You are a solopreneur or a hiring manager for a small non-tech related company, and you have to hire a software developer. You know nothing about the profession, nothing about coding, nothing about the “going rates” or salary ranges. Your understanding of software is, “Show me what it can do, how it runs, and then I’ll use it.”

So, where do you begin? With this guide, perhaps. Here are the steps you might consider.

Identify Exactly What You Want the Developer to Do

Either you have an idea for a piece of software you want to take to market, or your company needs specific software developed for in-house purposes. Your initial job is to decide exactly what you want that software to do.

Is this a “one-shot” deal for a single piece of software, or is this a longer-term deal where a developer will be working for you on a regular or contract basis?

Do Some Basic Research

It’s not difficult to find any number of resource articles on software development, even in the niche related to what you want developed. You can get an idea of the programming languages that are most recommended and popular with developers. You don’t have to understand them – you just need to understand the programming languages you want your hire to know.

You research will also give you solid information on price/salary ranges – certainly a good thing to know.

Finding the Candidates

You have lots of options, so pick the ones that will work for you, perhaps those that have worked in the past. Remember, the process of recruitment and hiring is no different for software developer. It is the skills and expertise that will be unique.

Get help from a techie you know to construct a job posting/description that will include the skills you are looking for – hard and soft. Post the opening on tech job boards, on social media sites like LinkedIn and wherever else you usually do.

Use the services of a tech recruitment firm – this may be pricier, but the initial screening will be done for you

Use contacts that you know and trust. If you have a network of peers, they may be able to point you in the direction of sources for candidates or, if appropriate for your need, freelancers who are really good at what they do.

Software developers currently working for other businesses may not be actively looking, but if the right opportunity comes up, may want to make a change. This is why you want to post your opening on sources like LinkedIn and tech-related social media platforms.

Narrowing the List

This will be tough, but you can look for some very specific things in resumes or perhaps in initial phone or video interviews. Here’s a short checklist of sorts for that initial contact:

Have they contributed to open-source software?

What languages do they feel most comfortable with?

What is their past experience?

Do they have a portfolio and how can you access it?

Do they exhibit confidence in their own strengths and skills?

Have they worked solo and/or as members of a team?

The Interview

So, now you are ready to interview the few candidates that have made your short list. What do you ask? Based upon surveys of both programmers and even Google hiring managers, here are questions you should and should not ask. You will find that many of them are questions you would ask any candidate.

Past Experience

This you will ask any candidate. Put a specific spin on this. Ask the candidate about his biggest disaster and how he worked through it. If the candidate is honest, she will be able to identify one and then describe how it was “fixed.” Any good programmer will have had disasters. You are looking for honesty and the work ethic to do what it takes to resolve issues.

Communication Skills

Ask the candidate to describe his/her favorite project. As a prelude to this question, you want to inform him/her that you are not a techie. The goal here is to see if the candidate can explain the project so that you have a good understanding of what s/he did – in non-techie terms, that is.

Part of a developer’s skill must be in communication and must be the ability to communicate to those outside of the niche what a project is all about and how s/he will go about approaching a project. Even if you are hiring someone remotely, you will want to be a part of the development, and you will want continual conversation with the developer. Being able to communicate that progress to you in terms you can understand is vital.

Solo or Team Player

Depending on your needs, you need to know your candidates’ experience and their comfort level with how they will function for you. Hiring a freelance means that the developer is comfortable working alone but also communicating with members of your organization who will be impacted by that work. Hiring a employee means comfort with collaboration.

Is There Passion?

One of the ways to gauge this is to ask what development communities the candidate is active in. GitHub, for example. Developers who are really passionate spend non-work time communicating and collaborating with other developers.

When the candidate talks about his/her projects, do you sense excitement? You should.

Gauging Talent

This is where you may need to have someone with expertise take a look at the projects in a developer’s portfolio. As well, just as you do when you hire anyone, you will want to check references, whether from clients or former employers.

It is not a negative for a developer to have had a lot of past employers. This is a career that is in high demand, and they like to go where the challenges (and the money) are more attractive.

Things to Avoid

A lot of recruiters and hiring managers give developer candidates “puzzles” to solve. And non-techie interviewers often pull these from the web or are given them by other developers. Chances are the candidate has already seen them or something similar. They really are not a gauge of talent.

It’s also not a good idea to ask a developer where he sees himself in five years. If they are honest, they won’t actually know, so it is not a fruitful question. Good developers will go where the challenges fit their needs, so that is really the only answer that will make sense.

You really can make a good hire even if you don’t have expertise in technology. Follow this guide, get help when you know you need it, and make a good hire.

Running a business online has become much easier than before and more people are getting an online extension of their physical shops to reap better profits and benefits. However, with the increase of the technological advances, the fraud activities have also increased drastically.

People are at a high risk of identity theft or fraud in the increasingly technological world which is almost entirely controlled by brainless machines. With more and more people falling prey to all the Internet and technology-based cyber crimes, having Professional Errors and Omissions technology insurance has become indispensable.

There are a variety of tech insurance policies which include non-owned or hired auto insurance, professional liability, worker's compensation, contents coverage insurance, general liability insurance and crime coverage insurances apart from umbrella coverage insurance.

Most of the companies which involve any Information Technology based business or those involving any consultation based business should consider consulting a technology insurance company and get themselves secured against any form of software misuse or website hacking and defacement.

These tech insurance policies provide a bit of security for the digital and electronic data.

Companies involving telecommunication, computers and software, IT companies, electronic manufacturers and medical technology are at a high risk for being plagued by these Internet and important data-based thefts and should wisely choose an insurance with all the necessary coverage. The increasing number of Internet frauds has not just attacked minor websites and companies, but also major giants and government high-security firewalls and sites like those of Master card and Visa cards.

It is, therefore, extremely necessary that every IT company should get a professional liability insurance. Internet Insurance helps their company stay safe even in the case of any fraud or if any hacking occurs. Getting such insurance helps get a cyber liability coverage which will help both the clients and the service providers to work at peace and become safe at the risk getting huge loss due to software or website crashes due to flaws in IT security from hackers.

Other IT companies which are involved with a technology service where consultation is a major part should also get an error and omission insurance to protect themselves from any probable lawsuits from the client’s side in case of any damage. In a business where a client’s business and dealings are dependent on the services and advice provided by another, a case where any physical or monetary loss happens at the client side, a fraud or deceit charge could come up against the consultants.

All kinds of businesses are prone to errors and a minor omission, misjudgment or negligence on the part of the service providers could cause huge damage to the clients, and the blame would come to the consulting firm. Some tech product manufacturers and distributors have major concerns when our product liability laws are surpassed by technology and automation that actually increase risk exposure. IT Professionals such as computer software database engineers, project consultants, business consultants, lawyers and doctors are in high risks of such law-related complications. These lawsuits involve a handsome amount of money matters involved in the fees, judgment process and damage coverage.

Therefore, getting an errors and omission's insurance policy for consultants will protect the individual as well as their company from going entirely bankrupt. There are also cases when the consultants are falsely charged but even in those cases, getting a defending lawyer to prove innocent might come at a huge cost. It is then when an error and omission insurance saves the company.

Over the past few years, businesses have understood the significance of local seo and how it can boost their local visibility. However, when it comes to local blogging, most of the business owners shy away, as it requires time and effort to create an awesome blog. What they don’t realize is that by doing so, they are missing the opportunity to interact with their community and gain some loyal clients.

If you are wondering what a local blog is, it is a blog that provides valuable information to residents, targeting a specific geographical region. In other words, it can be a great means of sharing your expertise with your community and gain its trust. Since, most of the business owners and small businesses do not have time to create a blog, they prefer hiring professional writers or marketing firms that can fulfill their blogging needs, and frequently publish new blog posts on their behalf.

“Blogger Local” is one of such firms, which not only specializes in offering blog writing services to local businesses, but also provides unique, valuable and timely information to its readers. They have a huge following and an avid reader base that visit the site quite often to read new blog posts. With a team of local bloggers, “Blogger Local” work tirelessly to bring latest news about local businesses, including reviews, special events, how to articles and announcements.

In a nutshell, you don’t have to be an expert writer to create local blogs. All you need is a good blogging firm that can share your ideas or expertise with the community in an effective manner.

In 2007, some computer engineers at IBM began to build Watson. The goal was a machine that could be programmed to locate information in order to answer questions asked of it. They decided that the big “test” would be for Watson to go on the TV show Jeopardy, and win it. That happened in 2011.

Since that time, IBM has made a conscious decision to use Watson in medicine – to have it master a huge body of knowledge related to medical research, diagnosis, and treatment. To that end, Watson is able to read medical journals from all over the world in minutes; it can review patient histories, track drug trials, and present new therapies to medical professionals. And nothing is ever forgotten – in fact, Watson just keeps on learning.

Enter PostMood.com

Now, Watson is dabbling in psychology and overall wellness on a very human level. Alex Sass, CEO of PostMood, has developed an app that combines the social media behavior of individuals (specifically, what they post on Facebook), their sleep patterns, daily diaries, and their Fitbit data, feeds all of that into Watson, and comes up with a “mood” indicator on a daily basis, among other things.

Over time, PostMood provides information on volunteers’ basic personality traits and even makes suggestions for improving their general well-being. Such suggestions may be to post more positive messages, to increase exercise, or to get more sleep. More general analyses are also made – is an individual primarily an introvert or an extrovert, for example.

The goal of this app for the individual is to gain insights into their moods and personality, what causes moods to shift from positive to negative, and to “correct” behaviors in order to increase positivity.

The Larger Goal

According to Sass, the app analyzes each individual participant, provides their reports, and hopefully improves their well-being with recommendations.

Such recommendations usually include a thorough analysis of the Facebook content they post and, as well, what they are reading from others. Facebook is also analyzing what they post and view and gives them more of the same. Negativity thus begets negativity, and the mood becomes rather permanent. PostMood takes all of this in and provides a “score” of sorts, allowing the individual to make conscious choices to change Facebook behavior.

The same goes for other the other aspects of analyses conducted by the app – physical exercise, sleep, personality inventories, and more. Participants thus gain valuable insights into how the choices they make impact their moods.

But Sass has bigger goals. He uses Watson to aggregate all of the data that is collected to generate more “global” patterns of behaviors that promote happiness. From all of PostMood’s analyses, he hopes to be able to come up with daily activities that will promote happiness worldwide

How To Participate

Anyone can sign up for free, as long as they are on Facebook and/or Twitter. Bonus point if you have a physical fitness tracking device.

Participants log in daily and their changing moods are recorded for them based upon their own comments, their posts, their fitness data and the amount of sleep they have had. Daily challenges are set for individuals, based on Watson’s analyses.

This project is the first of its kind to record and analyze the mind/body connection, and Watson has been an instrumental piece in all of this. It allows the aggregation of not just individual data but allows scores to be compiled globally. This allows more generalized daily challenges to be set as well.

According to Sass, Watson has analyzed in excess of 10 million social media posts. And because Watson never forgets anything, he can analyze trends in posting on an individual and aggregated basis.

All of this analysis allows Watson and Sass to generate “mindfulness” exercises that will benefit everyone, using the data that Watson aggregates and mood-tracking software developed by Sass.

According to Sass, 45,000+ from all over the world joined last year and almost half of them are now experiencing a rise in their “happiness scores.” And this improvement is not merely subjective. Watson is analyzing their social media posts, their fitness data, and their sleep amounts to get those scores.

Having been analyzing the data for a while now, Sass says that his top tip for happiness is to get more sleep. “We included sleep tracking in our system this year, and those who manage to get a decent level of shuteye seem to have the edge when it comes to also expressing joy, both internally and through their social timelines.

Biggest Project in Human Predictive Analytics

Sass believes that his Human Happiness Project is the largest of its kind outside of the predictive analytics used by businesses to predict consumer behaviors and trends. AI is used to collect data on such things as purchasing preferences and credit worthiness; it is used to present doctors with data than can drive diagnoses and treatments. But this project can provide predictive analysis of what people themselves can do to make themselves happier and more positive.

If you’d like to let PostMood give you a happiness score and get some solid, actionable suggestions for improving your overall well-being, you might want to join this project. Sass has plenty of funding, and it will be long-term and global.

Go to the PostMood site, read a little bit more about the project, and sign yourself up. You really have nothing to lose, and you may gain some valuable insights into both your personality and behaviors that may be keeping you “down.”

Disruption. That’s the new term for big change that comes to industries as a result of technology. Consider just the changes in communication and services as a result of technology. The internet, smartphones, social media, education, entertainment and beyond, have all changed dramatically in the last decade, showing how technology marches on at an incredible pace.

Disruption in the financial services industry was inevitable. And it is upon us in major ways. What we witnessed in 1998, with the founding of PayPal, we are now seeing on a huge scale, with banking, investments, lending and insurance affected by huge disruptions that are being embraced as quickly as they come. As both financial service providers and consumers look to the near future, here is what to expect.

1. Fintech becomes a solution for the little guy

Traditionally, only investors with deep pockets could enter the banking and financial services industry. This is no longer the case. Lean start-ups, focusing on specific areas of financial services, do not need the kind of money that traditional institutions needed and are eating away at the market share that were traditionally the monopolies of large financial institutions.

Pushing this along, obviously, was the financial crisis of 2008 – people lost their trust in the big banks and welcomed new and innovative services that allowed them to have more personal control and choice.

Everything from transferring money to buying insurance, investing to bank accounts, even getting a mortgage loan can now be accomplished online through companies that do not have the large overheads that traditional institutions do. All they need is talent, and there is plenty of that.

And consumers love this new form of “shopping” for services, especially because they can compare all in one place. In a recent PwC Global study, respondents from traditional financial service institutions stated that by 2020, they expect to lose 25% of their business to FinTech enterprises.

2. Matching investors with those in need of capital

Time was, if an individual needed venture capital, they had two choices – family or traditional banks. The problem with traditional lending institutions was a lack of access unless all “hoops” were jumped through and all conditions met; as an industry, moreover, large institutions enjoyed a concentration of power and, often, a lack of transparency.

To compete with the venture capital industry, savvy disruptors created crowdfunding platforms and what is known as equity crowdfunding. In the former, smaller investors can contribute to a start-up venture with the anticipation of receiving a payback at interest. The latter involves individual investors putting up money for an equity position in the new venture.

Peer-to-peer lending models include such companies asIndiegogo and Kickstarter in the U.S. and Crowdcube and Seedrs in the UK. Additionally, larger companies, like Barclays and Accenture, have been attempting to find new and innovative financial solutions through acquisition, reducing the risk potential or need to conduct the research themselves. Smaller market infrastructure firms such as NEX. NEX have been successful in competing with the larger venture capital institutions and banks by partnering with growing fintech companies.

3. Data science

Data analytics have come a long way. From e-commerce businesses tracking who comes to their websites and what pages they visit and how many move into the buying funnel, technology has moved to the collection of huge amounts of data about consumers and their behaviours. From those aggregate collections, sorting that data into information that large institutions can use to make decisions about what products they offer, to whom they offer those product to, and even when they make such offerings.

This has meant a big paradigm shift from focus on products, to focus on consumers and what they want and value. Financial services institutions that use big data to drive their decisions will win the competitive race in the long run.

4. Investments – more consumer participation

Financial investment services have traditionally lain with brokerage houses and financial advisors who evaluate personal investors’ finances and make recommendations regarding investments. Then along came “day traders” who thought they could compete with the “big boys,” cut out the middleman, and make their own fortunes. In most cases, this was disastrous – they just did not have access to the research and information that the career professionals did. And, again, like banks, these career pros had a monopoly on bringing individual investors into the markets.

The mystique is now gone, and individual consumers are demanding the same information that the investment services industry has and getting it. They are also demanding personal participation in investment decisions and their own asset management. Digital robo-advisors hit the scene, and brokerage houses and investment counselors were caught off guard.

Investment institutions will have to make the change to more user-friendly platforms if they intend to keep a decent market share.

Charles Schwab realized this earlier than others. It began in the 1970’s as a discount brokerage house, offering cheap trading prices to individual investors. But when disruptors like Wealthfront and FutureAdvisor came along, the company had a choice – be beaten or change its business model.

They took some time to analyze this robo-adviser disruption and see if it was viable. It was. And so, the company became a FinTech startup itself by launching Schwab Intelligent Portfolio. It was a huge success and today it outperforms other startups.

5. Insurance and IOT

Insurance companies have also become more consumer-driven, given that customers can shop for their insurance needs online and compare products. This of course has forced insurers to modify products and become more competitive. One of the biggest disruptions in the insurance market is the internet of things (IoT). From home and car security devices to remotely controlled temperature and appliance turn-ons and shut-offs, to devices placed on cars to monitor safe-driving habits, insurance companies can use digital information to set individual rates.

6. Public cloud services will streamline banking operations

The more cloud-based computing becomes mainstream, the more comfort financial services institutions will have using it. And SaaS apps are continually improving. As this happens, core activities of financial services will be taken to the cloud and automated. As this continues to occur, the need for people services within company infrastructures will certainly be reduced. It is predicted that by 2020, core functions, such as payments, statements, billings, and even credit scoring/worthiness will no longer require human/manual work. The implications for underwriters alone, in the mortgage lending business for example, are pretty big.

7. Cyber-Security – A continuing risk of increased technology

Executives in the financial services industry continue to worry about security, especially due to the increase in the use of mobile devices and IoT technologies (particularly older devices that do not have the latest security) on the part of consumers and the potential for cyber criminals to “back door” into their systems. Cloud-based technologies can help some, but are not immune to attacks either.

In conclusion

These are only seven disruptions that technology has brought to the financial services industry. There are more to come – the shift to Asian technological innovations, blockchain technology which is still a bit of a “mystique” to most financial services executives, and the technological advances in the regulatory sector. And there are more to come, for certain. FinTech startups are trying to out-pace traditional institutions. Traditional institutions will need to make decisions to step up their game or to find ways to collaborate with those startups that prove to be successful. If Charles Schwab can do it, so can others.

In 2016, something happened that has likely never happened before. One world power hacked into the databases of another world power in such a way that they were able to influence the outcome of the presidential election. No, that’s not conspiracy theories. It really happened.

This is what happens when everything is so interconnected. Yes, there is convenience in the continuing flow of data. Anyone who is old enough to remember when data was transmitted from place to place in batches can attest to this fact. Now data flows freely, not just from computer to computer, but device to advice, even appliance to appliance. This causes significant risk everywhere, including in supply chain management. Fortunately, there are some steps that can be taken to secure the supply chain

First Understand Where The Risks Are

According to a survey conducted by SCM World, the majority of executives are (37% of those expressing concerns in the named area) are most concerned with supply chain breeches related to incidents occurring in information technology, and data security.

Significant levels of concern are also expressed in the areas of shipping and logistics, and intellectual property. There are many other fears outlined in the graphic, and most of them are likely influenced by the increase in hacking incidents as well as perceived future risk.

Vet Out Your Suppliers

Unfortunately, in supply chain management, you can do everything right, but you are still at risk. This is because everything connects together like… well, a chain. Criminals, other governments, militaries, unscrupulous businesses, etc. are on the lookout for weaknesses in that chain. When bringing acquiring new materials and services, know who you are working for.

Ask them the right questions. Know who they are doing business with, and whether or not they are aligned with countries that are not friendly or concerned with the interests of your company or your country.

If you want to ensure that software vendors won’t let you down either, it’s worth setting up an escrow deposit for the source code and/or license. In that case, even if the vendor goes out of business at some point, you would still be able to run your business smoothly.

Involve Supply Chain Management Teams in Information Security

Many organizations are very concerned with data security risks that come as the result of users abusing their access or doing foolish things that put them at risk for phishing, social engineering, or simply doing something that allows unauthorized access to data by a nefarious entity.

In spite of the fact that purchasing, selling, and transferring goods and services involves huge amounts of data, the risk is often not even considered. For example, an organization might block users in the customer service department from downloading a social media app because of security risk (nothing wrong with this per se: employees are definitely the cause of many security risks), but won’t do its due diligence in mitigating supply chain risk.

Not only should supply chain teams be considered when making data security policy, they should be subject to rigorous auditing as well.

Be Prepared to Spend Money

This may be something that you cannot handle in house. If your supply chain consists of vendors and suppliers from multiple countries, for example that may be more than your in house IT security staff is up for. An information security consultant specializing in supply chain risk management will be able to analyze your current situation and provide the advice and solutions that can help you mitigate your security risks.

Unfortunately, there is no way to completely eliminate the risks that simply exist in supply chain management. As long as you are involved in the process of buying or selling, you cannot avoid being exposed to some level of risk. Fortunately, by educating yourself, being vigilant, and investing in the right kind of help, you can help to ensure the safety of your data.

In today’s era, when technology plays a vital role in the development of a child’s future, a good pair of WIDA headphones is a must have. It allows your child to use a PC, laptop or even a tablet without any distraction. However, when it comes to choosing a set of headphones, there are a lot of things to consider: price, durability, sound quality, brand and usability.

With so many options available it can be quite difficult to compile a list of classroom headphones, especially those suitable for WIDA testing. Here are some headphone ideas to get started.

Over Ear Headphones: These are traditional full size headphones with large ear pads that cover your ears. These headphones are perfect for schools and most educational purposes, as they allow the user to focus on audio without any distraction.

On Ear Headphones: These are lighter and smaller than over ear headphones, with smaller ear pads. They are easy to carry, offer good sound quality and are easy to clean too.

Headsets with Microphones: Like the name suggests, they come with microphone and noise control or volume control option. These are needed for WIDA testing in cases that students must speak responses.

Disposable Headphones: These headphones are cheap and perfect for basic classroom activities. They are compatible with most devices. Hygiene is less of an issue than headphones that are being shared by multiple students.

Classroom Ear Buds: Quite sturdy and have longer durability. But are still disposable.

Wireless Headphones: With no wires attached, these headphones provide better mobility and are compatible with most of the new laptop, PC, and tablets. Students can inadvertently damage headphone plugs and other equipment when they have wired headphones on and try to walk away. Wireless headphones solve that problem.

Infrared Wireless Headphones: Provide crisp and crystal clear high quality audio. Moreover, these headphones do not interfere with other electronic equipments that are at close proximity.

When it comes to hiring IT Consultants or IT Support Company for your business, there are several things you need to consider, such as your requirements, budget, experience and reputation of the consultant firm, etc. Today, most of the IT support companies are offering their services on contractual or as-needed basis. In other words, you can hire a professional for deadline-driven tasks or long-term assignments. Not only it saves you time, but allows you to save money, which you would have spent hiring a full time employee.

First of all, you need to determine your technology gaps, and where your team is lagging behind. Second, you need to decide what specific role the consultant will play and how much you are willing to pay him for that specific task. And lastly, go for those consultants who are fully certified, and have enough affiliations or credentials to support their claims.

However, before hiring the consultants make sure that they have enough experience in handling companies or businesses of your size. For instance, if you are a small business owner, and you hire a consultant who specializes in helping bigger enterprises, he might struggle to meet your requirements and fail to deliver results within given timeframe or budget. In the same way, if you are a bigger firm, and you hire a consultant who specializes in helping small business owners, he might not have the skills or expertise to handle bigger technological tasks of your business. Hence, conduct a thorough background check of the IT Support Company and see if they have the expertise to fulfill your demands.

Third graders are learning to code; high school students are creating game apps; and business owners are using DIY tools to create their own websites, with easy-to-install plugins for any functions they want. All of these activities used to be part of the skill set of a developer – that person who sits at a computer and writes that indecipherable language called code.

The “mystery” of coding is gradually falling away. With online courses and plenty of books, people can teach themselves to code. Still, when the demands are complex and the projects have lots of breadth and depth, we look for skilled developers/development teams to create what we want. And what we want is more than mere coding expertise.

We want that amazing developer who isn’t just skilled in languages – those can be verified. We want that developer who has a host of other skills and talents to bring to the table.

Staying on Top of the Technology

This almost need not be mentioned. And yet, developers, like any other career professionals, can become complacent and “rest on the laurels” of their current knowledge. Further, if they operate within an enterprise culture that restricts, they can be discouraged from pursuing innovations. This is a bad recipe. Consider just a few disruptive sectors, for example – fintech, healthcare, and media/entertainment. Everything from big data gathering and analysis, to AI, to IoT require an ever-expanding skillset from developers. Amazing developers are “hungry.” They are passionate about learning everything new in their industry. They need to be “reckless” to a point – to be willing to try new stuff, even if it is an epic fail.

Giving Advice and Counsel

Businesses, especially entrepreneurial startups, certainly have general ideas about what they want their websites to look like and “do.” The “look” is largely a design issue. But when it comes to functions and elements, it is the developer who makes it “do,” with both backend and frontend programming. It is the developer who determines the technology stack to best meet the specifications of the business owner. In this capacity, the developer must play a role of “advisor,” providing options and making suggestions on the technology that will best achieve the desired results.

With this in mind, amazing developers will also need some solid understanding of what constitutes state-of-the-art user experiences and interfaces along with marketing best practices. This understanding is clearly outside the realm of coding, and some self-education is in order. A great “crash course” might be something like Vincent Piana’s, “The Website Formula to Success,” offered through FuzzBooster.com.

Creative Problem-Solving in a “Team” Environment

“No man is an island” is an appropriate adage for the web developer. Whether working as a full-time IT employee for a mid to large-sized or as a consultant, the developer cannot isolate himself in a room with his coding tasks. Interaction with designers, marketers, sales, managers, and executives will be required. More and more developers are pulled into critical meetings when businesses are scaling and/or innovating.

Communication Expertise

Non-techies do not understand the development environment. They will not understand such terminology as “backend stack,” Angular.js, etc. What they do want to understand is how the coding will result in the app, program, website doing what they want it to do.

In these cases, communication can be a challenge. The developer cannot just present a listing of the languages s/he will use to accomplish the task. People want to understand.

It becomes the developer’s task, then, to use visuals to educate. Drawing a picture of the backend stack, for example, will help non-techies understand the relationship between server, database, and API’s. Using visuals to demonstrate how a user will place an inquiry and get a response and how that response will provide a good experience will go a long way in endearing the developer to the client. Doctors draw pictures for their patients – so should developers.

Staying Motivated and Enthusiastic

Amazing developers are problem-solvers. And they stay positive and enthusiastic, even after 6-8 hours of moving links around or finding the “culprit” as they de-bug some function. Amazing developers see these tasks not as drudgery but as exciting challenges that they want to attack and over which they want to be victorious. And they love the battle as much as the victory. A good developer goes through the process; an amazing developer loves every bit of it.

Being Trustworthy

Designers and developers, especially those that are outside contractors, occasionally get a reputation for being somewhat untrustworthy – they may not be as responsive as they should be; they may not keep their clients in the loop as often as they should; and they may miss a meeting or a deadline. These things do not inspire much confidence on the part of a client. While a developer may indeed be working very hard and very consistently on a client’s project, meeting deadlines and attending meetings, even if virtual, are critical components for a client to say, in the end, “My developer is amazing” and to recommend that developer to others.

The developer’s role is certainly changing. From an early “vision” of a nerd sitting in an isolated room creating code to the much more dynamic individual that a developer must be today, there are clearly skills and talents that go far beyond coding. The amazing developer will recognize this and take the steps to develop those hard and soft skills that are now required.

One major advantage provided through guest blogging is that you are able to increase your search engine authority and domain name recognition. This blog is a great example of that.

Without even needing to invest my time doing any special SEO techniques or focusing on buying links from other sources, I've achieved the results I wanted. My blog currently has a Google page rank of 4, and it receives over 4,000 visitors every month. Some of my posts even have a page 1 ranking that I've achieved simply by using well-planned keywords.

My experience demonstrates the value of guest blogging as a way to build authoritative back-links that drive traffic to your blog and improve your search engine results.

How to Increase Your Online Influence

Do you know what your level of online influence is? When I speak about Influence, I'm not referring to expertise or authority. I'm talking about actual influence, which is able to be either positive or negative. It has everything to do with how many people you're able to impact.

Guest blogging on other people's blogs that are more well-known than yours is an awesome way to influence the lives of others, and to create a lasting memory of you for them. You might wonder if it's even possible for you to have such an influence on other people from your blog. The truth is that you'll reach more people by attracting the readers of other blogs to your own.

Guest Blogging Develops Your Visibility

How long it will take you to increase your visibility and become highly respected within your niche can vary. There are some people that claim that it will take years. The fact is that it only took me about 8 months because I used the power of guest blogging.

Guest blogging makes it possible to associate yourself with some of the most popular bloggers in your niche, and when people begin to notice your name on all the blogs they frequent, they'll automatically give you the same level of respect that they already have for the bloggers they love.

Increase Your Portfolio and Online Credibility

There is really only one reliable way to know if someone is worth having your attention, and if they can do what they claim to be able to do... their credibility. You have to demonstrate your reliability and credibility to visitors to your blog. One great way of doing that is by guest blogging on other blogs. You're portfolio of writing will be available on a wider scale, and when you do it regularly you'll establish a reputation of reliability in the minds of your readers.

Develop Your Writing Skills

When I first started blogging, I'd write lengthy articles to submit as guest posts for a variety of blogs. These treatises would be guided by my inspiration, and I'd experience a lift in my spirit as the words flowed to the screen. Of course, I felt like each article was a masterpiece!

At some point I received a reply from a blogger letting me know that he wouldn't be including my guest post on his blog. He told me that he couldn't even provide me with a critique of my work because the writing was so bad that he couldn't understand the article!

I was angry. I ignored his comments and I submitted the article to another blog, but in time I calmed down and gave what he'd said some consideration. I went back to the article and took another look at it, and identified several key problems with it that I was able to resolve by editing it. The revised article was accepted, and was posted to the blog. Here are some good tips to improve writing skills.

The lesson learned? Always proofread my posts!

It doesn't matter what your skill level is as a writer, or how inspirational you think that your work is, you can't avoid proofreading. If others can't understand what you've written, you're never going to be able to attract more traffic to your blog. Your goal needs to be to continually strive to improve and build upon your writing skills.

Grow a Healthy Subscriber Base

Driving traffic to your blog should not be your only goal. Guest blogging has enabled me to increase the number of new subscribers that I attract on a daily basis, to more than I used to gain in a month!

Some of my guest posts have resulted in acquiring over 200 new subscribers in a single day. When I first started blogging, I was lucky to get that many in a month. I seldom write a guest post that results in less than 50 new subscribers now.

Guest Blogging Increases the Reach of Your Social Media Profile

Not everyone cares about driving traffic to their blog or acquiring new subscribers. Possibly the most important thing to you is that you build a strong Twitter or Facebook fan base. Guest blogging can get that done for you. I've heard of people acquiring as many as 200 new followers by linking to their Twitter feed in a guest post. Talk about increasing the reach of your social media profile!

What's the Next Step?

If you loved this post and think that it could benefit others that you know, feel free to share it on your favorite social media sites. I'm also available for guest blogging consultation, or as a professional guest blogger should you desire to jump start your campaign. Contact me directly for the details.

Guest blogging works. I've used it to effectively promote my domain name and to increase my search engine visibility, and you can too! Give it a try, and watch as new visitors to your blog start to flow in!

For retailers, inventory is one of the most important aspects of business. But it is also one of the most difficult things to track. Every day, sales, returns, new receipts and breakages affect your stock levels. While daunting, keeping track of it all in real time is one of the most important tasks to keeping your business ticking over.

When you don’t keep track of your inventory, it’s easy to run out of products—and miss out on sales. Instead of relying on your memory or constantly visiting your warehouse, a dedicated inventory management software could be just what you need.

With most modern systems, you can run a quick and easy stock report to stay updated about what’s going on in your warehouse. You’ll be able to quickly see what products you’re running low on, compare your stock level with what’s been selling well and automatically reorder before you run out.

Invest in products that sell

To be successful in retail, you need to invest your cash wisely by buying the right quantity of each product—enough to keep sales going and prevent stock-outs, but not so many that some just sit on the shelf. Keeping accurate inventory reports helps. And with a dedicated inventory management platform, you can quickly identify slow-moving products and reallocate budget to invest in products that sell.

More accurate reporting = better decision making

With a dedicated inventory management software, you can quickly produce accurate stock reports and see true stock cost values—which are essential to your financial reports. The easier, and more accurately you can see your balance Sheet - as well as your Cost of Sales and Profit and Loss reports—the better management decisions you can make.

Easily pick up on errors

If you’re keeping an eagle eye on your inventory levels with dedicated software, you’ll spot problems right away—instead of months later during annual stock takes when they may have already cost you a lot of money. Whether a step in your warehouse process is being missed or one of your salespeople is making mistakes on sales orders, you need to know sooner rather than later. The best way? By constantly reconciling sales and purchases through an automated inventory management software.

Happier customers

Precise inventory management also help you provide better customer service. When customers say they haven’t received one of the products they ordered, you need to be able to check your stock and confirm. Likewise, if you regularly keep on top of inventory levels, you can identify incorrect shipments sooner. And if your stock system is up to date with purchase orders, you’ll be able to sell customers the products they want because you’ll know more are just about to arrive. This kind of communication encourages your customers to trust you, which in these competitive times, is a valuable asset.

Efficient reordering

Reordering will be fast and easy if your reports tell you what’s in stock. You can work methodically through your product set, making informed buying decisions instead of physically checking your warehouse shelves to write a purchase order. If your reports come from an advanced inventory management system, you also can tell if you already have products on order with a supplier and if your supplier has long lead times or irregular deliveries. This information is a must if you want to keep reordering under control.

Reduced warehouse costs

When your inventory software tells you what you have in stock, the pick-pack-ship process runs more efficiently. Your warehouse staff don’t need to run around looking for the last product because you know exactly when it sold and shipped. This enables you to process more orders in the same amount of time with the same staff—or balance your resources differently. Accurate inventory management tracking keeps your business lean!

Improve stock take and end-of-year efficiency.

With a dedicated inventory management system, periodic stock takes are faster and more efficient. You’re just confirming data that’s already in your system instead of doing a lot of time-consuming data entry.

The world is becoming an increasingly digital space. Today we manage, share and store our lives online. Data is gathered from our devices, computers and smartphones that collect and transmit information on what we do; but that is just the beginning. This phenomenon is transforming our understanding of the world and our place in it; it’s become known as Big data.

Big data could be invaluable for business. It could provide a window into the lives of customers that we have never previously imagined. But, there is a problem. How do we unravel the strands of Big data and pick out the relevant parts. Data comes from so many sources; how do we know where to look and how do we access it? In short, how do we turn all this information into knowledge? To understand how big data and analytics works, you have to put it in the context of how things worked before Big data.

Businesses are already using Big data to better understand and predict customer behavior and optimize and improve business processes. But the possible applications of big data are endless. We’re only just beginning to see the emergence of the Big data economy. Your business needs to consider Big data or risk being left behind. IBM Big data and analytics specialize in helping companies understand and leverage Big data.

About five years ago something fundamentally changed. The world started getting smarter; cars, running shoes, medical devices even people through our devices and social behaviors started being instrumented. They started creating valuable data. Every time we pick up a smartphone to make a call or send a text, it creates a call detail record. Hundreds of billions of CDR’s are created every day. Enormous and advanced infrastructure like advanced processing power and in-memory capabilities make it possible for telecom operators to analyze the deluge of CDR’s; but for many, the volume is overwhelming.

Fortunately the infrastructure and the software continue to evolve. Advances in data management software like seo toronto make it possible to explore any kind of data while leaving it in its original state. For a telecom operator this means they don’t have to structure the data before getting insights from it. Instead they can put different data in a giant exploration repository and start to do analytics on all sorts of data at rest; both structured and unstructured.

This allows them to discover interesting patterns, developing new insights around key things that matter like their customers. And because the pattern are based on all data; meaning structured data like billing and CDR data, unstructured data like customer tweets and notes from customer service agents, they are developing a holistic picture that helps to define the best course of action.

For a telecom operator worried about customer churn, this means able to proactively reach out to a customer with a compelling offer before they decide to leave. There’s even potential to use a cognitive system in the call center to help guide a company rep in delivering better service. But sometimes thing are moving too fast to rely on human intervention.

Today, IBM is at the forefront; working with a few leading telecom operators to improve the customer experience even further. By knowing where their high valued customers are located, they can detect network bandwidth issues and address them in real time.

Bluemix is a cloud platform powered by the world’s most popular open source project. Bluemix is here to help you efficiently develop applications in your way; simplifying how you build and manage them in the cloud. Bluemix let you choose your own programing language; work with your own architecture and make your own design choices.
IBM has changed the way applications are delivered. Making cloud more accessible than ever with Bluemix. IBM Bluemix is a cloud platform as a service developed by IBM. Bluemix allows you to easily extend and enrich the functionalities of your applications with services and API’s from both IBM and third parties that are based on the world’s most powerful open-source technologies to pair your applications.

Bluemix takes care of the infrastructure come with over 100 services to choose from ranging from Watson, IoT, Analytics, API creation management and integration; concerned about provisioning licensing and other time consuming issues. Bluemix’s immediately deployable technologies include push notifications, SQL and NoSQL Database, messaging, security and more. You can easily augment applications with Bluemix’s ground-breaking cognitive learning machine Watson as well as other leading AI services. These services come from both IBM and its community partners.

Bluemix is designed to accelerate innovation tapping into your current cloud environment and delivering more engaging solutions. Since the inception of Bluemix we have seen a huge market response from startups to enterprise corporate clients like SilverHook, Tangerine bank, Hertz car rental, IQ, Capgemini, Volvo, Honda, Citibank and many more.

Bluemix is designed with choice of deployment in mind; even the suit the most sensitive workloads. Bluemix Public allows the user to experience and tap into a world of services across Watson like mobile and IoT in our public cloud environment. IBM Blumix technology could be a leverage in Adwords scripts. Blumix dedicated offers superior combination of security and time to value in a cloud environment which feels like an extension of your own data center. For your very sensitive workloads for data compliance you can bring Bluemix behind your firewall with the markets first of its kind approach private cloud delivery.

Bluemix was designed with speed and ease in mind; it makes life easier for the developer and the entire development team. With Bluemix we provide teams of all sizes with a flexibility to scale computers at a very granular level, seamlessly collaborate in source code, share API’s and manage apps performance logs and costs through a single console.
Developing an application is easy, but deploying ab application is even easier. With Bluemix your application is deployed and running in productions within minutes.

Bluemix’s future-rich built to measure git repository makes everything; from production live coding to building to deploying your application as simple as a push command. You can quickly extend the capabilities of your app in any direction. A click of a button, a copy-paste of the credentials of your new service and you are back on track. And once you’re alive, Bluemix will handle scaling monitoring and logging. So you could spend more time on what you actually love doing.

This is An IBM Redpaper publication

"Abstract

This IBM® Redpaper™ publication is a comprehensive guide that covers the IBM Power System™ S822LC for High Performance Computing (HPC) server (8335-GTB model). The S822LC for HPC server is designed for high-performance computing applications that support the Linux operating system and high-performance data analytics, the enterprise data center, and accelerated cloud deployments.

This paper introduces the major innovative S822LC for HPC server features and their relevant functions:

This paper expands the set of IBM Power Systems documentation by providing a desktop reference that offers a detailed technical description of the S822LC for HPC server.

This paper does not replace the latest marketing materials and configuration tools. It is intended as an additional source of information that, together with existing sources, can be used to enhance your knowledge of IBM server solutions."

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Below, you can read a review which includes more details about one of our clients from Sales and marketing professionals

In today’s world, social media is becoming more and more relevant by the day. With billions logging into Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Instagram and many more every single day the business and marketing opportunities of the sites are endless. People using these sites to gain publicity for their business or their own personal brand have been able to make huge amounts of money by using the convenient format for placing advertisements and their own personal content. As a result of this movement, there are many services on the internet which can be used to increase your social media presence quickly and without having to put in any hard work in order to try and reap the rewards. This may be very risky as it is likely to look very obvious that you have done so but there are certainly positives to using a service such as this to gain thousands of followers and kick start your career.

The effort required

Creating interesting content or growing a successful and exciting business are extremely difficult thing to do. This means that only very few people manage to find a niche online as social media personalities or online businesses which become successful and widely used by the public. Whilst it may not be as honest as using your own ingenuity to come up with great ideas to use on social media platforms, it is far quicker. Using services online where you can simply pay money for Facebook likes or Twitter follows for your personal or business channel is potentially a very quick way to gain a large number of followers. This will therefore quickly increase the amount of exposure you get and will hopefully increase the number of followers you will be able to amass from there on in. This can cut down dramatically on months or years of struggling to get people on the internet to notice you.

The investment made

Making content that is going to grab people’s attention on social media doesn’t come cheap. With millions of viewing options online, there has to be something specific about the message you are creating if you are a new online presence and you want to get people to notice you. Using an instant famous scheme, however, can circumnavigate this problem however as your increased exposure will already have come from a small investment with a company for followers, rather than spending a lot of money on making potentially unsuccessful content to attract people to what you are trying to do.

Social media can be a goldmine

Using social media in the right way can bring an individual or new business huge amount of money and exposure very quickly. Those with large followings on platforms such as Instagram can be paid thousands per post for simply taking photos with products from businesses who want their product exposed on a wider stage. This brings about opportunities to earn huge money from simply having a large following; something that can be greatly helped by the use of instant famous social media schemes. Businesses also can attract higher profile personalities to work with them simply because they have a large social media presence. This allows entrepreneurs to grow into hugely successful individuals or to take their ideas and transform them into a great business, all because they were able to quickly find followers.

Advertising

Having more followers will lead you to greater advertising opportunities. On social media, there are always people looking for spaces to sell advertising and if you are a presence with a large following already you may have access to some of the most premium advertising spots on the internet. At the beginning, these may be too expensive but if you can take advantage of your quick growth then your bank account should grow and you would then be able to afford the best advertising opportunities possible for your idea or brand. This would then further increase your exposure and let you take your idea even further.

Varied opportunities

When you are perceived as someone who is successful then you will be granted with a wider range of opportunities for whatever it is you are seen to be growing. This may not happen instantly but after the initial investment and careful management you could hugely increase your online footprint and work yourself into a host of other possible opportunities. Whether they are advertising based or possible investment opportunities in other growing social media presences. The chances you will be given should give you the best possible chance of growing even further and allowing more development of your personal or professional brand. If people see you as a great investment they may even interact with you that way and this could help boost your followers up even further than you ever thought.

Your immune system is always at work; protecting you from a constant barrage of threats. And to combat such diverse threats, your immune system must be equally coordinated to prevent and detect attacks in an orchestrated, fast response. But what if your body was also vulnerable to cyber threats? You’d need a different kind of immune system, but one that still works as a unified whole to disrupt threats at any point of the attack, no matter how advanced they may be.

IBM threat protection system integrates security solutions together, so you can prevent, detect and respond to cyber threats with just the right course of action and without delay. When your security is overloaded, the health of your IT environment is weakened. Disconnected single purpose solutions make it difficult to monitor the whole network and security teams are forced to defend in the dark. That’s why IBM security developed an infrastructure immune system.

In a market flooded with more than 1200 point product vendors, IBM has separated itself by offering leading solutions that work together across your ecosystem. IBM’s expertise and integration enables full collaboration across third party vendors, technology provider and business partners to enhance security while lowering cost and complexity. Unlike the old way of piling on products to combat each new threat, the IBM security immune system grows, adapts and communicates inside your infrastructure.

You get a more holistic view of your security; a connected and organized framework of defense capabilities sharing critical security data. This deliver greater visibility, richer intelligent and actionable insights. Creating an efficient and effective end to end that reduces gaps in your security, the system features a complete set of solutions and services that address three critical aspects of security.

First
Security transformation services mitigates risks by consolidating fragmented solutions but don’t always speak the same language. With a unified network and around the clock support from trusted experts, you can close the security skills gap, proactively protect your systems and strategically be ready to capitalize on IT trends.

Second

Security operations and response allows you to prevent detect and respond to threats in an orchestrated and automated fashion; powered by cognitive capabilities an IBM x-force threat intelligence. The IBM security immune system senses, identifies and prioritizes known and unknown threats enabling rapid resolution.

Third

Information, risk and protection keeps your data users acts and transactions safe wherever they are. Real-time analytics and alerts helps you pinpoint risks, gain visibility and control over user identities and manage your sensitive data. You can also strengthen compliance initiative, secure applications, improve mobile collaboration and protect your mainframe environment.
Traditional defense in depth tactics can’t keep up with today’s threats. Like that, now the traditional system of checking a car’s information has become far too slow. That’s where vindecoderz.com will help you to check your car’s unique VIN number and all the vital information with it. There is a new way to think about security with an integrated intelligent defense to keep your organization safe; IBM security intelligence and expertise in one framework.

We create an immense measure of health related information; from our fitness tracker mobiles applications to electronic medicinal records. The normal individual is probably going to create more than one million gigabytes of health related information in their lifetime which is huge. Clinical trials and examines additionally include an immense measure of data.

New discoveries are being made continually and all the more capable and advance technologies make better instruments for diagnosis prevention and comprehension of sickness and disease. The immense measure of individual data could open possibility of the knowledge to make life longer and more advantageous.

So the question is how can the healthcare professionals keep up? And the answer is IBM Watson Health. This Watson Heath esteem based offerings conveys more proficient care, connects with patients and consumers and improves business execution. IBM Watson Health will cause rethink ways to better help by giving information something to do for every one of us.

The capacity to learn and overtime refine its analysis based on what it is figuring out how to transform this enormous heap of data into information. With the help of IBM Watson, we will be able to do even more to make the data about our health work for us. This Watson Heath value-based offerings conveys more productive care, engages patients and consumers and streamlines business execution. IBM Watson Health will help redefine paths to better help by putting data to work for all of us.

IBM Watson utilizes psychological figuring for analyzing enormous masses of data. Extraordinary compared to other focal points of Watson is the capacity to break down unstructured information. This machine can consider confirm, break down photographs, make conclusions.

In the first place, IBM Watson was being prepared to treat breast and lung cancers. As Watson learns from its own experience, enhancing the exactness and making more certain treatment choices, this machine can now offer treatment for solid and blood cancers: prostate, ovarian, pancreas, liver, kidney, uterine, bladder, colon, cervical, etc. IBM Watson works like a bit psychometry which is best to use on objects who’s history can be proven, so that you can verify whether your impressions were correct or not.

We generate a huge amount of health related data; from our fitness tracker mobiles apps to electronic medical records. The average person is likely to generate more than one million gigabytes of health related data in their lifetime which is enormous. Clinical trials and researches also add up a huge amount of data. The medical industry is unable to keep up with the tremendous rate at which the information are produced. Here comes the IBM Watson Health cloud.

As modern medicine improves it also gets more complicated. Hundreds of thousands of medical articles are published every year. New discoveries are constantly being made and more powerful technologies create better tools for diagnosis prevention and understanding of illness and disease. The huge amount of personal data could unlock insights to longer and healthier life. So the question is how can the healthcare professionals keep up? And the answer is IBM Watson Health.

The IBM Watson Health cloud brings together a vast amounts of medical data into one centralized thinking hub on the cloud, combining traditional analytics with the advanced cognitive capabilities of Watson. . So, we can say that cloud brings together individual clinical research and social data from a diverse range of health sources creating a secure cloud-based data sharing hub. The ability to learn and overtime refine its analysis based on what it is learning to turn this huge pile of data into knowledge. With the help of IBM Watson, we will be able to do even more to make the data about our health work for us. This Watson Heath value-based offerings delivers more efficient care, engages patients and consumers and optimizes business performance. IBM Watson Health will help redefine paths to better help by putting data to work for all of us.

In spite of these advantages, numerous doctors report challenges fusing shared basic leadership innovation into their immediate patient interactions. The new solution could be intended to address these challenges by incorporating inside the doctor's work process in the electronic health record system. It could summarize key cognitive insights about a patient's health status, assemble a de-identified cohort of people similar to the individual, and describe the results of those individuals under different treatment alternatives.

Imagine if you had a rare, un-diagnosed disease that’s any doctor is not being able to tell of. What if there were a single secure database which could read your symptoms of that disease and run through thousands of clinical studies, similar patient records to determine the disease? Just after one year of its launch, IBM Watson Health is already starting to make this unimaginable impossible task to reality. And its all because of its powerful cognitive computing platform and a wide-reaching partnership strategy.

For instance, say a patient has an uncommon,, genetically linked form of lung cancer. A generalized cancer doctor likely hasn’t had the time to keep up with the latest in specific lung cancer treatments. In the most recent year alone, there have been no less than seven new lung malignancy drugs approved by the FDA. . That doctor may not be aware of how best to use those drugs or even if they apply to this patient.
Meanwhile IBM Watson Health has been fed previous case studies on patients like this by lung cancer specialists. So IBM Watson Health understands the threat and list out a potential treatment for the doctors, with a percentage rank of certitude and risk next to each option. The doctor then reviews the decision and consult the patient about his treatments.

That’s how Watson Health Imaging and Merge are working together to deliver cognitive medical imaging solutions for radiologists, cardiologists and healthcare providers who treat a wide variety of diseases around the world in 2017 and beyond.

This is An IBM Redbooks publication

"Abstract

This IBM® Redbooks® publication gives a broad understanding of storage clouds and the initial functionality that was introduced for mainframes to have Transparent Cloud Tiering.
IBM DFSMS and the IBM DS8880 added functionality to provide elements of serverless data movement, and for IBM z/OS® to communicate with a storage cloud. They introduced the following key areas:

A gateway in the DS8880, which allows the movement of data to and from Object Storage be using a network connection.

DFSMShsm enhancements to support Migrate and Recall functions to and from the Object Storage. Other commands were enhanced to monitor and report on the new functionality.

DFSMShsm uses the Web Enablement toolkit for z/OS to create and access the metadata for specific clouds, containers, and objects.

DFSMSdss enhancements to provide some basic backup and restore functions to and from the cloud.

This IBM Redbooks publication is dived into the following parts:

Part 1 provides you with an introduction to clouds. You might be new to clouds or have a confused view of cloud terminology. If so, Part 1 is helpful in providing you with the basic knowledge you need.

Part 2 shows you how we set up the Transparent Cloud Tiering in a controlled laboratory and how the new functions work. We provide points to consider to help you set up your storage cloud and integrate it into your operational environment."

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Points to consider buying a good mattress and assuring Improved Sleep

Spending in bed around a third of every day is common, regardless of whether this time is spent slumbering blissfully or turning and tossing. All these depend on the mattress. There is no doubt that a mattress has a great impact on the sleep of a person. Mattresses affects sleep also relates to the network of capillaries, the fine blood vessels running beneath your skin.

Lying on your body for a period of time means the weight reduces the blood flow to those blood vessels, thereby depriving the nutrients and oxygen to the skin. This causes pain sensors and nerve cells sending your brain a message to roll over. Rolling over assures good blood flow, but it also disturbs your good sleep.

Ideally, a good mattress improves your sleep and can be more productive at work. This is because a good mattress reduces on your body the pressure points and gives a better night's sleep. However, note that the ideal mattress varies with each person. The productivity level depends on our activity and inactivity. People failing to acquire good sleep at night cannot recharge their brain and body fully. The performance will surely deteriorate.

There is a need to change the mattresses after a span of 5 to 7 years. Likewise, while investing for good bedding significantly, there is a need to ensure there is the original bounce even after 7 or 10 years, so that it proves to be a good mattress improving your sleep and you can be more productive at work. Alongside good pillows are equally important.

Things to consider

Consider adjustable beds and if possible take mattress on a test drive

Check and confirm about trial periods or comfort guarantees before buying

Without fail, check the warranty period.

A good mattress improves your sleep and can be more productive at work is true, but as such there is no definition making a mattress firm or soft. This is because a person who is 250-pound may say the mattress is soft, while the same mattress for a person with 125- pound may find it firm.

Which Mattress Is Right?

Finding a right mattress is not like looking for some top-tech brand. In fact, even an expensive mattress may not be as per your expectation. A high price tag alone does not determine the mattress. So, avoid concentrating on brand name or price, and think that you expect in a mattress that is really very personal. The choices vary, some prefer softer, while some firmer.

Of course, there is no scientific evidence proving the mattress type that can ensure you sleep better. Thus, consider buying a medium-firm mattress with a softer pillow that will offer the required cushioning and balance of support.

An adjustable bed also is a good buy if you prefer sleeping positioning your head raised. Such beds allow adjusting your hips and knees to a 90-degree angle and relieve sore joints.

This blog entry explores the steps involved with
all the steps taken to implement a Business Intelligence Solution in the cloud.
This example was used using Cognos.It
is a step by step example from the implementers perspective

Authors Kevin and Shamil Cole are a married couple with special gifts in creativity. We wanted to display our love for writing and each other, this is one of our many things we love to do. We are also the proud owners of Cole's Publishing were we have taken being an author a step further into the world of writing. Here at Cole's Publishing we have made being an author a more exciting experience for established and aspiring writers throughout the world. We understand how timely the process in becoming an author can be. Our newest Books are Seeds of A Man and Seeds of A Woman, we are not only authors but we help with assisting other authors in getting their books published by a professional and reliable company. As you read the two books listed above, you will find that inspiration and motivation is what we aim to display. Our books are written to help others understand the value and of not only being creative but enjoying the developments of life. Although, we completely understand that life can take each of us on a different journey, we enjoy sharing our experience of how beautiful life can be. In our books, readers will find true inspiration and often relative messages that resonate with their own experiences. The idea for writing books like Seeds of a Man and Seeds of a Woman came with complete compassion of the acknowledgment in both men and women. We each carry a substantial amount of different strengths and are gifted in character.

According to recent studies, Millennials, also known as “Gen Y” represents more than 80 million potential customers. They are more connected to technology and engage with brands more deeply. However, when it comes to convincing a millennial consumer through traditional marketing tactics, it seldom works, as the purchasing decision of millennials is influenced by their peer, family and friends.

Apart from this, they have become first priority for employers, as they are innovative, have leadership qualities and strive to make a difference. However, attracting millennial workers requires more than money and perks, as these workers are more interested in career development, leadership opportunities and growth.

“Millennial View”, is one unique firm that has dedicated itself to providing innovative workplace and marketing strategies to companies that want to benefit from millennial workers or consumers.

According to company’s spokesperson, Trevor Gormley: “The world is changing, we want to help businesses stay ahead of the curve. Empowering and engaging young people will create a better experience for the employee and most importantly for your consumer. We understand that not every company can provide its employees with the same environment as Google. However, at the Millennial View we assess your current management and marketing strategies to better position your business for the incoming millennial employee and consumer. Our assessment of the current Values, Interests, Environment, and Work-Life balance of your employees and consumers allow us to create crucial strategies to help guide your business in the coming years.”

In today’s era when new inventions are launched each day, it’s quite difficult to get noticed and gain the attention of potential investors. Moreover, even if you manage to get investors, you have to make sure to protect your idea or invention by patenting it. Those who do not know what a patent is, it is basically a legal document that allows the owners or inventors to legally prevent their invention ideas from being copied or exploited by other individuals.

However, patenting a product or an idea is a complex process, and there’s no guarantee that it will be patented by the respective authority. The good news is that there’s a firm called “InventHelp” that has helped thousands of inventors gain investors and patents through their referral service for their unique inventions. InventHelp has made its corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for over thirty years. They have a team of researchers, illustrators, writers, and customer service representatives who can assist inventors in submitting their invention idea or new product to industry.

According to InventHelp’s spokesperson: “InventHelp's job is to try to submit clients' inventions or new product ideas to industry in an effort to obtain a good-faith review and also to review any interest expressed. You may choose to apply for a US patent and simultaneously attempt to present your idea to companies. Many inventors select this option of using InventHelp's submission program in conjunction with our invention patent referrals. If you prefer to locate legal counsel on your own, you may still use InventHelp's submission program. Inventors who have already obtained patents for their inventions can also use our services to attempt to submit to industry.”

In a nutshell, they can guide you throughout the whole process, right from how to patent an idea to manufacture a prototype of your product.